Alaska's First Bush Pilots, 1923-30 - Jim Rearden

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many Alaskans.

      Later, in Montana, Bennett entered into a business relationship with Bob Johnson, of the famous and highly respected Johnson Flying Service at Missoula. Johnson pulled out after three years, saying, “I couldn’t pay Bennett’s bills any longer.”

      Liquid-cooled engines dominated aviation for years, but they were heavy, bulky, and often cranky. About one-third of forced landings of planes equipped with liquid-cooled engines could be attributed to the engine.

      Air-cooled engines eliminated complex liquid cooling systems, which included a pump, pipe-and-hose water connections (as many as ninety on the OX-5), and a radiator to cool the liquid. Elimination of such a system made the Whirlwind at least one fourth lighter, and much less bulky, than a liquid-cooled engine of comparable power.

      Early air-cooled engines were inefficiently cooled, and needed a rich (more gasoline) and cool-burning air-fuel mixture to reduce engine temperature. The J-5C Whirlwind’s nine cylinders efficiently dissipated heat, allowing use of a lean, and more economical, mixture. This gave an airplane many more miles to the gallon, to use an automobile simile for comparison.

      Thus the Whirlwind changed the aviation world with its reliability, efficiency, and lightness. For these reasons, its designer, Charles L. Lawrance, was awarded the 1927 Collier Trophy, at the time America’s most respected aviation award.

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      Alaska’s First Bush Pilot

      WRONG FONT THOMPSON

      Fairbanks, even in the 1920s called a “mining camp” by old-timers, became the center for early aviation in Alaska, partly by chance, partly because of the tremendous advantages of flying, and, helped along by the constant barrage of support of “the aviation” as he called it, from W. F. Thompson, editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. ($2/a month, delivered by carrier).

      Nicknamed “Wrong Font,” for his initials (he preferred “Wandering Foot”), he loved to write. And he loved to promote. Aviation became a favorite.

      Thompson was likable, attractive to both men and women. He liked to drink, and he never worried about money. “He didn’t have the faintest idea of a dollar’s worth,” according to a long-time friend. He was dapper, with a Vandyke beard, and was always immaculately dressed, head back and shoulders squared. He limped and carried a cane because of a poorly healed broken leg from a train accident. He had a world of friends, and few enemies.

      Before “the aviation,” he promoted Fairbanks as “The Golden Heart of Alaska,” even though times were tough in that gold mining town during the early 1920s. When school teacher and former Army pilot (in the reserves, however) Carl Ben Eielson, arrived at Fairbanks in 1922, he often visited Thompson and reporters at the News-Miner, which then had both the editorial and printing equipment in a single room.

      Under Thompson’s guidance, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner printed everything possible about local airplanes, listing departures and arrivals, names of passengers on bush flights, and the locations of planes down in the bush awaiting repair. The purchase of a new airplane was almost headline news. Thompson glamorized pilots, who, in his eyes, were all heroes. Ben Eielson had no difficulty in talking Wrong Font into investing in the Farthest-North Airplane Company and buying a Jenny, along with Thompson’s friend, Dick Wood.

      Wrong Font died at age 63, January 4, 1926, at Fairbanks. Among his legacies was the supremacy of Fairbanks as the aviation center of Alaska which lasted for years, in part as a result of his skilled and persistent promotion of, “the aviation.”

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      W.F. “Wrong Font” Thompson, editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner during the 1920s and early 1930s. He promoted “the aviation” in his newspaper, and even invested in it with Ben Eielson. News-MiNer

      Another of his legacies was his establishment of the position of Aviation Editor on the Daily Fairbanks News-Miner staff. In 1929 and 1930 this position was held by Don Adler. Adler became a student pilot at Service Airlines Flying School in April, 1930.

      Following are a few bits from the News-Miner’s columns, highlighting and promoting aviation:

      Monday, August 19, 1924. Wien Makes Trip to Eagle in Day. Lands River Bar. Linking Eagle with Fairbanks by air route for the first time, Pilot Noel Wien yesterday made a round flight in remarkable time and with complete success. Leaving the local field at 11:30 a.m. with Norman Wimmler, placer mining engineer of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, as a passenger, he winged his course toward Eagle, arriving at his destination and landing on a sandbar on the opposite side of the river to the town in 3 hours and 25 minutes. Returning, he took a straight course for home, landing on the local field at 8 p.m. The return flight was made in 2 hours and 45 minutes.”

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      Fairbanks, May 9, 1925. Noel Wien landed afoot in Nenana last evening after walking for three days and nights from where he had landed on a bar, out of gas and out of oil. He briefly stated the facts as above and then announced that he would talk no more until he “had a bath.” He’s a Cheechako, [newcomer] and couldn’t wait until Saturday night.

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      February 20, 1932: Alaskan airmen again dared death in the Northland when Nieminen and Cope flew to Cook Inlet Sunday and brought Fred “Mulligan” Gotherberg, a trapper who is ill from exposure, to the Anchorage hospital. Gotherberg, believing he was about to die, wrote a letter explaining cause of death. The letter, brought by an Indian, alerted the flyers of the trapper’s condition. Obtaining a meager description of his cabin, the flyers searched the Rainy Pass district until they found the cabin. They landed on a snow-covered flat and brought the trapper out to the hospital.

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      July 1, 1933. Pilot Ed Young of the Pacific Alaska Airways hopped off this afternoon with mail and express for Livengood. Pilot S. E. Robbins arrived in the company’s pontoon equipped plane today from Nome with Sam S. Kendrick of the reindeer service as a passenger. Pilot Harry Blunt dropped into the city in another of the company’s pontoon equipped planes after a 4,000-mile jaunt around Alaska with Joseph J. Meherin and Lyle Herbert, merchandise, and Chas. Goldstein, fur merchant of Juneau.

      THE FIRST ALASKA BUSH PILOT

      [AUTHOR] Noel Wien could legitimately be called Alaska’s first bush pilot, for he was the first to provide consistent, year-round service for bush residents over a vast region.

      Noel flew for Jimmy Rodebaugh’s Fairbanks Airplane Company during the summers of 1924, 1925, and 1926, during which time he established numerous firsts. For several years, planes he flew were often the first to land at many villages and mines. Commonly, residents where he landed had never seen an airplane.

      His first flight north of the Arctic Circle (to Wiseman, May 5, 1925) was memorable for its aftermath. On his return flight to Fairbanks, high winds pushed his slow plane far to the south, where he ran out of gas and landed safely on a bar of the Toklat River. He was forty miles from Nenana, and about seventy miles from Fairbanks.

      His four-day walk to Nenana from the downed plane, during break-up, became a bush pilot legend. He had a Boy Scout axe, a pocket knife, a Luger pistol, and no food. He arrived at Nenana half-starved and exhausted. He had lost twenty pounds. [And felt he needed a bath.]

      LEARNING HOW TO FLY IN WINTER

      While

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