account describing the historic flight in the August, 1956, Wien Alaska Arctic Liner monthly publication, which was aimed mostly at company employees.
June, 1925. Noel Wien landed on the first airport built in interior Alaska by Frank Leach, owner of Circle Hot Springs. “I went up on the nose and the prop stuck straight down into the ground, but did not break. We used the horses to pull the plane to harder ground, and take off was made without trouble. Frank Leach with a prying pole on left left, helped by Joe Mehern on right
Recounting the Early Days of Wien Airlines
By Noel Wien
The change has been great both in aviation and the city of Fairbanks since that memorable day, July 6, 1924, when, in a water-cooled Hisso-powered Standard J-1 open-cockpit biplane, Bill Yunker and I landed here after flying non-stop from Anchorage.
We flew up at night, thus taking advantage of the smoother air. The smoke was very thick for the last eighty miles and kept us guessing all the time. It was even difficult to follow the railroad tracks from Nenana on in.
[AUTHOR] The flight wasn’t as simple as Noel made it sound in the above recounting. Following the railroad was easy, as long as it was visible; pilots still follow railroads as a navigation aid, and Noel had often followed them in the states. However, on this flight there were no airports for a safe forced landing. Much of the land was rough and steep, impossible to consider for a landing. The Alaska Railroad map he used showed towns and stations, but the “towns” often consisted of a few small scattered buildings. Stations were commonly one small building. The railroad had been completed the previous year, and there was little development along it; Noel flew over mostly unsettled wilderness.
After passing Mount McKinley (Alaskans call it Denali), North America’s tallest peak, he left the foothills of the Alaska Range with relief when he reached relatively flat, green country. It wasn’t farming country with pastures and cultivated fields he was accustomed to; instead, it was miles and miles of uninhabited tussocky tundra, interspersed with patches of spruce and birch trees. There were no obvious places to land safely.
Ahead of his airplane, the railroad tracks disappeared in forest fire smoke that extended to 10,000 feet. To keep the tracks in sight, he had to fly at 200 feet. Visibility grew worse, and smoke burned his eyes. He was soon forced to fly at 100 feet. He kept his eyes on the railroad, afraid to look elsewhere, fearing he might lose the tracks at a turn.
Noel Wien, on right, bound for the Kantishna area with mining engineer Ingram (left) and his secretary, Billie Hart, in September, 1924. Bad weather forced Wien to land on a 300-foot long bar on Bearpaw Creek twenty miles short of their destination. His passengers had to walk the rest of the way.
Three hours and forty minutes from Anchorage, Yunker pointed down to the University of Alaska’s experimental farm. Four miles farther, Fairbanks itself was covered solid with smoke, and Noel was startled by the sight of the two 200-foot-high midtown Northern Commercial Company’s smoke stacks. He quickly banked away from them. Shortly, he saw and landed on the race track at the edge of town. Race tracks (for cars) were commonly used by barnstormers in the states, and experienced barnstormer Noel had found a home.
That race track eventually became Weeks Field, for many years Fairbanks’ only airport. The town grew around it and it was clearly too small and inadequate for the use it was getting, as well as being in an awkward location, when it was finally closed in October, 1951.
PLUCKY AIRMEN BRING “ANCHORAGE” TO INTERIOR WITHOUT STOP; FAST TIME MADE OVER UNKNOWN COURSE, read the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner headline for the day, with the following somewhat misleading report:
Arriving over Fairbanks at 7:16 o’clock this morning, the airplane ANCHORAGE, ship No. 2 of the Alaska Aerial Transportation Company, successfully completed the first non-stop flight between Anchorage and Fairbanks. The flight was made in the fast time of 3 hours and 45 minutes, and was accomplished without incident. Pilot Noel Wien was at the stick, with Mechanician William B. Yunker2 as passenger.
Wien and Yunker, after making a pretty landing on Weeks Field, stated that, although they followed the general course of the Alaska Railroad, at no time was the roadbed visible to them. They were able to discern the Carlson roadhouse at Cantwell, where a landing field was said to be ready for them, but they were unable to distinguish the field.
Mount McKinley, rising to majestic height, was not visible until they were within a short distance of it. The lofty dome presented an inspiring pictured veiled in the low early morning mists surrounding it.
Noel Wien (left), in 1925, with one of the Hisso-Standard biplanes which he flew commercially from Fairbanks in 1924, 1925, and 1926. His passenger here was gold miner Carl C. Dunlap who Noel flew from Fairbanks to Beaver on May 3, 1925.
Seventy-five years later, on July 6, 1999, with special permission from the Federal Aviation Administration, another biplane, a World War II Stearman with two open cockpits, took off from the identical location used by Noel, now a park in mid-Anchorage. It flew to Fairbanks to repeat and commemorate Noel’s historic flight. At the controls were professional pilots Noel Merrill Wien and Richard A. Wien, the two sons of Noel and Ada Wien.
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1. Art Sampson arrived at Fairbanks by ship and train with the first Standard, and flew from there briefly. He then waited arrival of Noel Wien so he could leave. “This is no place for an airplane. There’s no place to land,” he told Wien. He returned to Minnesota and for 25 years he was Head of the Aviation Department of the State School of Science at Wahpeton, North Dakota. He also organized the North Dakota Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. After retirement he operated a welding and repair shop until his death on June 3, 1962.
2. Bill Yunker, a mechanic, and also a pilot, remained at Fairbanks as Chief Mechanic for Alaska Aerial Transportation Company until September 9, 1924, when he left for his home in Rochester, Minnesota. He managed the Rochester airport, worked as a mechanic for American Airlines in Chicago, and later worked for North Central Airlines in Minnesota as a mechanic, where he became Engine Overhaul Superintendent. He died October 29, 1960.
3
The Early Days of Wien Airlines
BY NOEL WIEN
[AUTHOR] During the mid-1950s Noel Wien wrote a series of “looking back” articles for the Wien Arctic Liner, an inhouse monthly publication for the airline. Selections from these first person remembrances, slightly edited, follow.
There was intrigue about the stillness of the air, and the frontier atmosphere of Fairbanks, which made me like the North from the day I arrived. For two weeks after we landed [on July 6, 1924; “we”, meaning Noel] we couldn’t find our way cross-country due to the forest fire smoke, but when it cleared, we were busy. People in Fairbanks took to the air quickly. They were hardy, willing to gamble. Ben Eielson had made a number of flights that spring before I arrived
