Airplane Corporation). He had also started the Farthest-North Airplane Company the previous year, and had brought in an old reliable OX-5-powered Curtiss Jenny JN-4D open cockpit World War I training plane.
Due to the interest created by Eielson’s pioneering, we had little trouble getting flying business to outlying mining camps. Livengood, sixty miles northwest of Fairbanks, a cluster of mostly log cabins surrounded by mines, was one of the best of the gold-producing camps.
During the first season in 1924, we made thirty-four flights to Livengood, and in the summer of 1925, forty three flights.
BROKEN WATER PUMP
All went smoothly until mid-summer 1925. We had purchased a supposedly major-overhauled plane from Lincoln, Nebraska, one of the Hisso-Standard build-up headquarters. The engine worked fine on the flight to Livengood, but on the return a sudden shower of water erupted from the engine’s cooling system.
I knew that because of loss of water, the engine would soon become so hot it would stop. We were about half-way to Fairbanks, near Wickersham Dome. I spotted a shelf to one side of the Dome which seemed like the only possible chance of getting down without breaking up or going over on our back. We were cruising lower than the 2,500-foot shelf, so I had to use power to get up to it. The engine was steaming plenty when I reached a landing approach.
It was a fairly good landing place, and the airplane remained right side up without breaking anything. The problem was caused by a broken water pump; water stopped circulating, overheated, and boiled over.
The two passengers and I walked to Olnes, on the Chatanika River [fifteen miles], over miles of miserable tussocks. One of the passengers, an old sourdough, had no trouble walking. The other passenger, an insurance adjuster, had flown with me for both business and pleasure. He was my first tourist, and possibly the first flying tourist passenger in Alaska. He wore Oxford shoes and was about to give up before we arrived at the Chatanika River.
After one day of rest, I was ready to attempt another landing on Wickersham Dome. We had just hired A.A. Bennett, a new pilot, to help us fly one of the three ships we had [the two Standards and Eielson’s Jenny]. He was new to Alaska, having just arrived from San Diego, California, and was skeptical of going in with me. Our second Hisso Standard was not in shape to fly at the time, but we had Ben Eielson’s OX-5 Jenny in good flying condition, so in it off we flew to Wickersham Dome to retrieve the crippled Standard.
The day was nice and I made a good landing, but busted a tire on a protruding rock. Knowing the landing surface was rocky, we had with us an extra wheel and tire already assembled. After replacing the wheel on the Jenny, we replaced the broken water pump on the stranded Standard, and re-filled the radiator with water we had carried with us from Fairbanks.
Noel Wien worked for the Bennett-Rodebaugh company 1924-26. The Stinson Standard airplane seen here is the same model plane as the Stinson Detroiters brought to Alaska by Hubert Wilkins.
L to R. A.A. Bennett, Ed Young, Jimmy Rodebaugh, unidentified, pilot Matt Nimienen, and Leonard Seppala, one of Alaska’s most famous dog mushers. The woman in the sled is probably Sigrid, Seppala’s daughter. Driver of dog team not identified. ED YOUNG COLLECTION
I gave Bennett his choice of the two ships in which to make the attempt on take-off. Having more experience in the OX-5 Jenny, he selected it for the return flight.
The shelf on the dome was close to 2,500 feet above sea level. The Jenny was quite heavy, and its ninety-horsepower OX-5 was a very low compression engine. He used all the take-off runway there was and dropped almost out of sight down the sixty-percent mountain grade. It was a scary operation, and I didn’t blame him for talking about it for months afterwards.
My takeoff was easy because of the higher performing Standard with its 150-horsepower Hisso engine. We both landed on Weeks Field without any trouble.
It isn’t my intent to write of my experiences, but instead to give some idea of the progress made in aviation since the early days in the North.
NO WINTER FLYING
I had to discontinue flying in the fall of 1924, for the open cockpits of the Hisso Standards, plus the water-cooled engines, were not suited for the deep cold of Interior Alaska. A decision was made by Rodebaugh to try to get for the company a cabin plane with an air-cooled motor for wintertime use.
Because I was going Outside for the winter to visit my folks in Minnesota, it worked out for me to make a tour of the states to see what kinds of airplanes were being built in the United States. In my travels I learned that about all that were being manufactured were a small number of open cockpit planes with the OX-5 and Hisso motors. One exception was the Huff Deland company which built planes with an open front cockpit for two passengers and a pilot cockpit in the rear. This plane used an early model Wright air-cooled engine of about 200-horsepower. It was unsuitable for Interior Alaska winters—we (Rodebaugh et al) had decided not to settle for anything but a cabin plane, but, as I learned, no cabin planes were then being built in the United States.
THE FOKKER CABIN PLANE
Both the Wright and the Curtiss companies did their best to locate for me a company in the United States that built a cabin plane, but their efforts were unsuccessful.1
We finally had to settle on a Dutch-built Fokker F-111, a six-place (pilot and five passengers) monoplane, a model which KLM and early German airlines had flown for scheduled airline service in Europe. It had a 235-horsepower, German, six-cylinder engine. The cabin was plush, with curtains and all the trimmings. It was built in 1921, and it was already the spring of 1925.
The Atlantic Aircraft Company, a dealer for Fokker, had three of these ships available. For $9,000 we bought one of them that had been used. I arranged for it to be shipped to Fairbanks via the Panama Canal.
This ship proved conclusively that a cabin airplane was the type to use in Alaska, even though we could not use it through the winter of 1925-26 because it had no brakes except for a tail skid, which helped to stop it. It had a rather streamlined monoplane wing, and took a minimum of 1,000 feet to stop after the three points [two wheels and tail skid] were firmly on the ground.
During the summers of 1925 and 1926 we (meaning Noel; no other pilot would fly the Fokker until Joe Crosson arrived, and he apparently flew it as a challenge—not for commercial flights). We [Noel] had some close shaves with the Fokker on sand bars and fields 1,000 feet or under. At the time, our flying out of Fairbanks was the only cross-country flying in the Territory. There was one earlier airline at Ketchikan in southeastern Alaska where for a time Roy Jones commercially flew a two-place Navy training flying boat.2
FIRST FLIGHT TO NOME
We were successful with the Fokker F-111, and with it made the first commercial flight ever to Nome from Fairbanks, carrying four passengers and 500 pounds of baggage, a 1,200-pound load. We flew non-stop back to Fairbanks in six hours fifty-five minutes.
[Author] On June 7, 1926, mining engineer Norman C. Stines, with two women, Midge Downer, and a Mrs. Dayo, climbed aboard the Fokker at Fairbanks with Noel and Noel’s brother Ralph (who flew as a mechanic) for the 579-mile flight to Nome. The charter price was $1500.
Noel ran into bad weather along the Yukon River, reversed course and, low on fuel, landed on a steep roughed-out
