those who flew in cockpit type planes for years converted to cabin planes, most complained, “I can’t see like I could from a cockpit.”
They got used to it. Being warm was their reward.
FIRST FLYING JOB
Shortly after completing his dual instructions, Noel looked for a job of any kind that involved airplanes. His instructor introduced him to E. W. Morrill, a former Navy pilot who owned a World War I surplus Standard biplane which he planned to use for barnstorming. Noel agreed to work as his helper. He would build time as a pilot by helping to fly the airplane cross-country between barnstorming gigs. He would also help maintain the airplane, collect passenger’s money, or whatever came along. In exchange he was to receive food and lodging; no dollars.
Early during their barnstorming tour they arrived at a small Minnesota town over which Morrill performed the usual noisy barnstormer’s gyrations with the plane to attract the attention of potential passengers. He then headed for a small field from which he planned to operate. To Noel, in the front cockpit, the field looked too small. Since Morrill was an experienced pilot, at first he wasn’t concerned. But when Morrill tried to land downwind and with a slight crosswind, he took notice.
Twice Morrill tried to land, having to pull up at the last moment each time when it became obvious the plane wouldn’t stop before running into a stand of corn. As Morrill tried the same approach for the third time, it was apparent to Noel that a landing could result in disaster. He seized the control stick, pushed the throttle wide open, and lifted the plane clear. Once at a safe altitude, he glanced back at Morrill, who, to Noel’s surprise, raised both hands, indicating he had relinquished the controls. Noel was now in charge.
He circled, flew an upwind approach over tall trees at the edge of the field, and dropped the plane into the tiny field with a perfect three-point landing. The Jenny stopped a few feet from the corn. Noel cut the engine and looked back at Morrill. He had transgressed by seizing control from an experienced pilot, and the owner of the airplane at that. He expected a strong rebuke, perhaps he would be fired.
Instead, Morrill said, “Good work. I couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing.” Wien had sensed the wind direction, which told him the proper direction from which approach to the field. In essence, that was Noel’s solo flight; he had command of an airplane at a critical time.
Morrill further acknowledged Noel’s skill by telling him to fly the plane out of the little field. “We won’t barnstorm from here—the field is too small,” he said.
Noel barnstormed with Morrill into August, 1921, by which time he had logged about seventy hours as a pilot.
BARNSTORMING AND A FLYING CIRCUS
For the next three years he barnstormed with various partners. He also worked for a flying circus that operated from Minnesota to California, and on to Texas. He became skilled in flying a loop with a wing-walker standing on the top wing; he flew parachute jumpers, and did acrobatics during circus performances.
In later years as a pioneering Alaska bush pilot, Noel Wien’s reputation was that of a safety-conscious, conservative pilot who commonly flew around rugged country and big timber to provide an extra margin of safety in event of a forced landing. Except in an emergency, he refused to challenge bad weather.
Alaskans who knew and admired the safe and careful Noel Wien would likely have been surprised to learn about the dust-’em-up and turn-’em-over kind of flying he had done in his early years as a pilot.
ALASKA BOUND
Wien’s early barnstorming and other flying jobs never lasted more than a few months. He was at home at Cook, Minnesota in May, 1924, when he was hired by James S. “Jimmy” Rodebaugh, Senior Conductor on the Alaska Railroad who had accumulated a stake trading furs along the rail belt. Rodebaugh thought airplanes could be useful in Alaska. He had bought two crated J-1 Standard biplanes from airplane dealer Marvin Northrup at Robbinsdale, Minnesota (not related to the airplane builder Northrop).
Northrup improved each of the Standards by removing the bucket seat from the front cockpit and replacing it with a bench that allowed room for two passengers; he replaced the landing gear with the more rugged De Havilland DH-4 gear; the Hall-Scott original motor was removed and the motor mounts rebuilt to accommodate the more powerful Hispano-Suiza 150 hp motor. He removed the vertical radiator, replacing it with a nose radiator, giving the pilot better visibility. The airplanes were assembled, flight tested, and, still in their olive-brown military paint, except for their red, white, and blue tails, and the Army Air Service roundels on the wings, disassembled and crated, ready for shipment.
Mid-summer, 1924, at Fairbanks and the two Hisso Standard J 1s owned and shipped to Alaska by Jimmy Rodebaught (on left). During the summer of 1924 and 1925 these were the only two airplanes being flown in Alaska. Pilot Noel Wien is on the right wearing laced leather knee boots and breeches common to pilots of the time. Eddie Hudson, miner, in center.
Rodebaugh asked Northrup to hire two pilots and a mechanic to accompany the planes to Flairbanks.
The two pilots Northrup sent were Noel Wien and Art Sampson.1 The mechanic was Bill Yunker, who was also a pilot, and with whom Noel had once briefly barnstormed.
The steamer Northwestern docked at Seward, Alaska, in early June, 1924, with 25-year-old Noel, now with more than 500 hours as a pilot, and a crated Standard aboard. Yunker, who had already been to Fairbanks with the other Standard, was there to meet him and the plane.
AT ANCHORAGE
The crated plane rode an Alaska Railroad flatcar to Anchorage, then a railroad town of 2,000, where Noel and Yunker assembled it and had “ANCHORAGE” in huge letters painted on its fuselage.
That June, in Anchorage, Noel flew more than 170 passengers on sixty-five flights with the Standard from a 2,000–foot runway volunteers had prepared just south of the town. He charged ten dollars for a fifteen-minute ride, and took in $1,700—a tidy sum in 1924.
Today, the runway he used is the Park Strip that parallels Ninth Street in down-town Anchorage.
The Standard, with Noel piloting, was the first airplane ever to fly passengers from Anchorage. On July 4th he flew loops, spins, and stalls for a large and appreciative Anchorage crowd.
Yunker installed a streamlined auxiliary fuel tank on the underside of the upper wing. It was built to his specifications by local resident Oscar S. Gill. This gave the plane sixty-five gallons of gasoline, with a range of about 400 miles, enough, Noel hoped, to allow him to safely reach Fairbanks.
While in Anchorage, Noel met Carl Ben Eielson, who was on his way out of Alaska. Within a few years Eielson was to make a name for himself as a pilot in Alaska and elsewhere. In time, he and Noel became friends.
“You’ll like it up here, and you’ll do well,” Eielson predicted.
FLIGHT TO FAIRBANKS
On July 6, 1924, at 2:30 a.m., Wien, with Bill Yunker in the front cockpit, lifted the Standard from the Anchorage runway and flew to Fairbanks. It was the first flight ever between the two cities, and one of the dozens of first-flight records in the Territory made by Noel Wien during his early years of Alaska flying.
Noel was not one
