Best of Contrails

May 2007 through August 2011

RETIRED NORTHWEST AIRLINES PILOTS ASSOCIATION

Best of

EDITOR / PUBLISHERGary Ferguson1664 Paloma StPasadena CA 91104C 323.351.9231 (primary)H [email protected]

OBITUARY EDITORVic [email protected]

PROOFING EDITORRomelle Lemley

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNISTSBob RootJames BaldwinJohn Doherty

HISTORIAN James Lindley

PHOTOGRAPHERSDick CarlPhil Hallin

REPORTERSEach Member!

The RNPA newsletter Contrails is published quarterly in February, May, August and November by the Retired Northwest Airlines Pilots Association, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to maintain the friendships and as-sociations of the members, to promote their general welfare, and assist those active pilots who are approaching retirement with the problems relating thereto. Membership is $40 annually for Regular Members (NWA pilots, active or retired) and $30 for Affiliate Members.

ADDRESS CHANGES: Dino Oliva 3701 Bayou Louise Lane

Sarasota FL [email protected]

I was re-reading Steve Bowens story A Storm of Failures in the Teeth of a Typhoon the other day and it made my palms sweaty all over again. It got me thinking that some of this stuff is worth reading again.

These are just my own choices of some of the best of Contrails articles from a little more than a four year period of May, 2007 through August, 2011. There is nothing magic about the beginning date, its just what I have on my computers hard drive. I do have disks of earlier issues as far back as August of 2003, but they are very difficult to convert individual articles with todays software.

In other words this wasnt enormously difficult to put together.

There are other candidates, such as Wes Schiermans account of his years as a POW, that should rightly be included here. The problem is that Dick Schlader was responsible for that wonderful two-part series and I dont think we have a digital copy of those.

In case youre wondering, I have three copies of every issue of the newsletter from the very beginning.

There is no index. Its just intended for browsing when you have nothing better to do. This is low resolution intended for viewing on the screen and probably would not print very well.

Enjoy,Your Editor

SUZY AND THE BALDIES (NO, ITS NOT A ROCK BAND!)Its doubtful that anyone had more fun in Reno than Suzy Armstrong. Since March she has been battling a brain tumor with chemo and radiation. Her doctors tell her shell be back to normal in three months. There isnt a question in the minds of any of us who were there that her wonderful attitude wont make that a reality. She is truly an inspiration. We heard more than one person wonder aloud if they would be able to fight such devastation with as much zest and spirit as she has.

Along with all your other friends, us baldies are pulling for you Suzy.

The photo was taken at the Reno reunion in 2007. Unfortunately, Suzy lost her battle with cancer and we lost her in December, 2008. Ed.

The open expanse of the Bering Sea stretches before us, its distant region covered in a bedspread of white cotton. The sky above is a solid plate of blue. The sun streams through the front windows as they forge a path for the aluminum tube that contains the 403 travelers fol-lowing behind. A cacophony of sounds betray any notion that our capacious airframe slides effortlessly as it pushes aside whats left of the atmosphere at nearly 86 per cent of the speed of sound. The ride is smooth.

I rub my eyes, grinding away the reluctance of be-ing awakened by the crew we are relieving. They have taken us from our near gross weight takeoff in Detroit, up through Canada and out into Alaska. As the second group of pilots replaces the first, we are more than six hours into our non-stop trip to Narita, Japan, the remote location of the airport serving the greater Tokyo area. The aestival view below is of the city of Nome, Alaska. It looks like specks of pepper on a table of salt and passes quickly beneath us as I point the nose of the airplane towards the Kamchatka Peninsula. Today the wind forecast has convinced the planners that a northerly route might help us ameliorate the effect of Mother Nature as she blows a frigid, unseen gale towards us at speeds approaching 150 miles per hour.

We will be entering Russian airspace in less than two hours, proceeding on a path over silent parts of the earth that will never have to worry about zoning law. There is only time for a meal, a glance at the Wall Street Journal and a little discussion before the volcanic chain of Kam-chatka appears off the nose. The myriad details resolve as we speed toward the jagged coastline. Placid lakes come into view as the mazy rivers they feed spill into the sea with alluvial fans of silt plainly visible from these reveal-ing heights. It is a view held by only a few, and seen only by those among the throngs in back who bother to lift

their window shades and marvel at what lies below. These are the box seats to the game Mother Nature and Father Time play without notice in parts of the world where man hasnt yet spoiled what our Creator has fashioned. It is a spectacular site.

As we approach, the smallest of the peaks, poking above the scattered cotton balls of moisture, emits just a whisper of smoke, as if to remind us of what lurks below, or to perhaps memorialize the eerily similar flight path of the Korean Airlines 747 shot down in September of 1983. Unlike their most likely innocent effort to follow the cor-rect path, our navigation today is dead accurate, almost taken for granted and looks easy, but is the subject of ver-ification at every one of the imaginary locations in the sky we call waypoints. Initially conceived as a required navigation reference, the imaginary points are now used to compare the fuel onboard to the amount the flight plan says we should have. We watch it carefully, well aware of the consequence of inattention.

Communication with the Ruskie controller down-stairs is difficult, their equipment mired somewhere be-tween the age of socialism and their agonizing struggle to achieve an approximation of democracy. It may continue to be difficult to communicate at this rate; something was lost in translation.

We wont linger here for long thoughour fuel burn is higher than planned and the crew will have to decide how to turn this trend around. With an airplane that consumes one gallon of kerosene every second, it doesnt take long to get behind on the fuel budget. Spendthrifts, or the inattentive, dont usually require an arrival with only fumes to convert them into the fuel misers we have all become. Not much chance to shorten our already great circle routing; the answer to our problem, after examining wind gradients, is the economy a higher al-

Just Another Day

By James Baldwin

titude promises. Over the next few hours we will burn less fuel in the more rarefied air, allowing a more com-fortable reserve at the conclusion of our flight. Unlikely, but who really knows if the weather might force us to go

somewhere else? Luckily for us, our compa-nys almost prescient meteorologists are

always monitoring the vagaries of the worlds weather and pass along to us the briefings we have grown to trust. It

always makes me wonder why they ar-ent the ones on TV.

Altitude changes so routine in the domestic U.S. are not the norm here, but the air traffic controller in Pet-ropavlovsk allows that 11,600 meters is available if we are able. Despite the performance limitations of our still heavily fuel laden 747, we calculate the higher altitude is attainable and confirm the assent to climb. As the throt-tle levers automatically advance it reminds me of an ele-gant matriarch gathering her petticoat to climb the steps to the second floor of the mansion. It doesnt take long for this lady to climb the airy steps; the airplane almost leaps to its new perch, shouting out her ability to defy gravity and annoy physics. She is a consistently able performer.

As we make our way across the vast, polished snow covered mosaic below, I expect to see hirsute beasts of some description, our visibility so great, but at seven miles above the earth, nothing smaller than an automo-bile is easily spotted. I still try.

Contrails now visible below at 9600 meters belong to a fellow traveler who, though unseen by us visually, is required to share the same flight path and altitudes. We listen on the radio and learn he is one of the competition, yet during these times of flight, we are all a band of broth-ers. Our climb allowed him better economy as well and less angst as he battles the same atmospheric conditions we do. Wall Street might object but the words here are unspoken.

The whitecaps on the Sea of Okhotsk finally disap-pear as the craggy, vertical edges of Hokkaido become welcomely visible. We slide our way down the Japanese archipelago and for no good reason, these days, I feel re-lief as we exit the formerly hostile airspace of a country I will never fully trust. If Ronnie was still here he might agree with that historically based bias. I suspect it will take only time for the Kremlin to prove that point once again.

Hokkaido disappears as quickly as the larger Japa-nese land mass of Honshu appears, diminutive in a glob-al sense yet so productive. Looking down over the green lush unpopulated northern region, it is amusing to relate it to the hustle and bustle of the typical Japanese city. As similar in appearance and manner as we find the Ameri-

can worker, he is no equal to the automaton like approach so prevalent in Japanese society. It is easy to go there and feel comfortable; we know what to expect, everywhere.

We have had a good flight. We have planned well and laughed and looked nonchalant while doing it. We have communicated with the company and they know exactly when we will touch down, how each passenger will con-nect, how many wheel chairs are required and what our fuel state is likely to be. The airplane will only sit still for two hours as a swarm of uniformed, vetted, busy workers clean, replenish and inspect every inch of her as she is made ready to once again load 403 souls onboard and depart for points south, near the equator. Well get our chance tomorrow, but tonight, this ship waits for no one.

The descent has been choreographed many times but is still calculated to a resolution of less than a mile. We will begin the process of arrival in just a few minutes. At our groundspeed of over eight miles per minute it wont be long before the four Pratts are reined back to flight idle and the nose of the airplane arcs downward. Our speed will not decrease as we watch an actual demonstration of potential energy carry us to our destination some 130 nautical miles away. It is a delicate balancing act involv-ing air traffic control restrictions, parallel traffic com-peting for the same asphalt and the variables governed by the laws of physics. Unspoken reputations depend on correctly blending these with the experience gained in the countless times it has either been done or observed as others performed. Dont believe for a minute the other guys arent watching. They are. Even though it has been over 12 hours in the air we seem to gain newfound ener-gies in anticipation of this portion of the flight. It is best we dothis is where weather, fuel, fatigue, traffic con-gestion, and for some, a sudden awareness, can begin to form the first link in the chain of an incident or accident lurking for those naive enough to believe it cant happen. It all looks so simple and even though we already know it all and have seen it all, privately, we dont and we havent. Well keep practicing until we get it perfect. I may have come close a few times but only close. One day, maybe one day Ill

In the end, our conservation and attentiveness turn out to be a good thing; the weather upon arrival is rainy with limited visibility. It is congested and all of the heavy machinery needs the renowned singular runway, 34L/16R the Narita rice farmers are famous for. That story is inter-esting and unique but will have to wait for another day.

The hand flown approach is textbook, the actual touchdown and turnoff flawless enough to evoke later compliments from the cabin crew. It might be just anoth-er day at work, but each one is truly different and almost all of them full of the challenge I still love.

Contr ibuting Columnist Bob Root

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Not all pilots are golfers. Even if you are a non-golfing pilot, you may find something of interest below. Or not.

I went golfing the other day, something I have been doing since age 14. Tomorrow, I become age 68. One would think in 54 years (pilots are good at math), a person could learn a great deal about golf. One would be correct.

The fact is that I know so much about golf I could easily pass the oral exam just prior to the six-month check professional golfers are not required to perform to keep their tour card. This thought surprisingly entered my mind as I stood contemplating my second shot on the par-four 10th hole at Desert Springs Golf Club in Surprise, Arizona.

I had, to this point, a nice round going. A par would result in a score of 78, which, in golfing terms, means I would break eighty. Even if I scored five on the hole, I would still break eighty, something I rarely manage these days.

And so it was that I stood over my ball, approximately 130 yards from the green when what remains of my brain went to work.

The only way to mess up this round and not break eighty is to hit this ball into that lake. I will not hit this ball in that lake! I can hit it in the bunkers, I can miss the green, but I will not hit this ball into that lake!

Unfortunately, at this point the thought of passing an oral exam for golfers entered and I recalled the good-old oral question for pilots

regarding continuation of approach.Some readers may recall sitting in a little

room undergoing the oral exam which, for captains, came every six months and for others once per year, and being asked by the check pilot:

What are the Federal Air Regulation requirements to descend below decision height or minimum descent altitude during an instrument approach?

Of course, we all answered:(1) The aircraft is continuously in a

position from which a descent to a landing on the intended runway can be made at a normal rate of descent using normal maneuvers, and where that descent rate will allow touchdown to occur within the touchdown zone of the runway of intended landing;

(2) The flight visibility is not less than the visibility prescribed in the standard instrument approach procedure being used;

(3) Except for Category II or Category III approaches where any necessary visual reference requirements are specified by authorization of the Administrator, at least one of the following visual references for the intended runway is distinctly visible and identifiable to the pilot;

7RNPA CONTRAILS MAY 2007

(i) The approach light system, except that the pilot may not descend below 100 feet above the touchdown zone elevation using the approach lights as a reference unless the red terminating bars or the red side row bars are also distinctly visible and identifiable.(ii) The threshold.(iii) The threshold markings.(iv) The threshold lights.(v) The runway end identifier lights.(vi) The visual approach slope indicator.(vii) The touchdown zone or touchdown zone markings.(viii) The touchdown zone lights.(ix) The runway or runway markings.(x) The runway lights; and. . .

Like many readers, perhaps most, I made a considerable number of approaches to minimums during my time in cockpits. And, of course, like all the others, I mentally checked off each and every one of these requirements before landing the airplane, despite the fact that it was bouncing in a crosswind, the weather was wet, snowy or foggy, the speed over the ground was near 150 miles-per-hour and the copilot was chanting, Im not scared, Im not scared... during the entire time spent below decision height.

I suspect that some might now be wondering how this relates to my presence on the 10th hole contemplating my second shot. Perhaps I should explain.

Federal Golf Regulations state that, in order to avoid hitting ones ball into a lake on the left of the fairway, a right-handed golfer must:

(i) Ensure no other golfers are within range of the trajectory of the intended flight of the ball.(ii) Take an open stance, meaning the left foot is placed farther away from the ball than the right as measured from a line approximating the intended flight of the ball.(iii) Weaken the grip, meaning rotate the hands in a counter-clockwise position relative to normal and before gripping the club.(iv) Slightly flex the knees and keep them flexed during the entire swing.(v) Place ones weight gently on the balls of ones feet while maintaining both heels on the ground.(vi) Hold the club with an overlapping, interlocked, or baseball grip utilizing pressure on the shaft only with the pinky and ring fingers of the left hand and the ring and middle fingers of the right.(vii) Straighten the left elbow and keep it straight during the execution of the entire swing.(viii) Keep ones head completely immobile, inert, or still in both the fore-and-aft and up-and-down planes during execution of the swing.(ix) Keep the eyes riveted on the ball during execution of the entire swing.(x) Aim WAY right!, and...

Of course, there is a big advantage for a golfer over a pilot when applying these regulations. I was not being buffeted, I was not traveling at approximately 150 miles-per-hour and my fellow golfers were not chanting, Im not scared, Im not scared... over and over.

I carry in my golf bag a special weapon used to retrieve golf balls from water. Mine needs a new grip.

Ever wonder if Tiger could pass an oral?

This is flying, too!

9RNPA CONTRAILS FEBRUARY 2008

Nick Mamer of Spokane promoted a nonstop flight which, in 1929, established a worlds distance record of long duration. Mamer was ably supported by the air-minded citizens of Spokane. One objective of the flight was to generate interest in a northern airline route. The increased public awareness of the unlim-ited utility of air travel was well demonstrated in the enthusiasm shown by the community of Spokane in sponsoring this long-distance flight by their locally distinguished pilots, Nicholas B. Mamer and Arthur Walker.

Under the leadership of Victor Dessert, the Spo-kane Nationul Air Derby Association furnished the funds and did the planning for a proposed, nonstop, round-trip flight from Spokane, to San Francisco, to New York, and back to Spokane.

Nick Mamer gave technical assistance to com-mittee members who had ably planned and directed the National Air Races in Spokane in 1927. This same committee did a flawless job of planning the Spokane Sun God flight.

The proposed flight began to shape up in the early summer of 1929, with material assistance fur-nished by the Texaco Oil Company and the Stan-

dard Oil Company. The Buhl Aircraft Company of Michigan gave further support in the building of a special, Single-engine airplane of sesquiplane de-sign, powered with a Wright J6 300 hp engine. Both the Buhl Company and the Wright Company drew on their backgrounds of experience to give all pos-sible assurance of success by producing a depend-able airplane and engine.

The route selected by the committee was from Spokane through Oregon and down the coast to San Francisco, then via Salt Lake, Cheyenne, Oma-ha, Chicago and Cleveland to New York City, re-turning to Spokane via Cleveland and Chicago, and then over the uncharted northern route through St. Paul and Minneapolis, Aberdeen, Miles City, Bill-ings, Butte, Missoula and Spokane.

Spokane businessmen contributed an additional $10,000 to the project.

The target date for the flight was set for mid-August, 1929. The Texas Oil Company arranged for fueling at San Francisco, Cleveland and New York. Art Walker, the other Spokane pilot and airplane mechanic of recognized ability, was picked to ac-company Nick Mamer on the flight.

From the book Montana and the Sky: Beginning of Aviation in the Land of the Shining Mountains by Frank W. Miley

10 RNPA CONTRAILS FEBRUARY 2008

The refueling crews included a Buhl factory pilot, R. M. Wilson, and an old barnstormer, Vern Book-walter. Wilson flew a Buhl Air Sedan, and Book-walter piloted a Ryan Brougham. Nick Marner fur-nished the Ryan, and Sam Wilson, a local mining man, loaned his new Buhl Air Sedan for refueling.

The airplane used for the endurance flight was christened the Spokane Sun God. Flown by Wilson, it arrived in Spokane from the factory at Marysville, Michigan, about August 10.

The air committee finalized their coordination of timing, route service and publicity, with subcom-mittee meetings on logistics, weather and pub1icity. The whole project was thoroughly planned in detail, the committee having had previous experience in their administration of the National Air Races iu Spokane in 1927. Mamer and Walker were given authority for final decision on any matters of con-troversy.

The Spokane Sun God was a sesquiplane or semi-biplane, with an upper wing of long span and a stubby, tapered lower wing designed to give added strength to the main wing and support the unusu-ally strong landing gear, built for heavy loads and rough field operation.

The ship was basically designed to carry six people, with a 300 hp Wright J6 motor. As modified for the flight, it provided room for the two pilots. Tanks in the fuselage and wings carried 300 gallons of gasoline, enough for a range of about 1,800 miles, or 18 hours flying.

Manually operated pumps were used to transfer fuel to the tanks in the fuselage, with filler caps ac-cessible in flight. A circular opening was provided in the top of the fuselage, through which a refueling hose could be inserted in the filler caps of the cab-in tanks. The fuel could be transferred to the wing tanks as desired.

Refueling was to be accomplished by lowering a hose from the refueling plane while flying over the Sun God. The nozzle of the hose could be handled by Mamer or Walker. The gas flowed by gravity into the tanks, while the two aircraft flew piggyback for-mation.

The refueling aircraft were scheduled to contact the Sun God at predetermined points, the first con-tact to take place over the Dunbarton Bridge at San Francisco by a Texaco airplane. The two Spokane refueling aircraft followed, operating by leap-frog technique, from Rock Springs east to Chicago. Tex-aco furnished the refueling planes in Cleveland and

New York. The two Spokane aircraft then again took over, rendezvousing with the Sun God at points west from the Twin Cities.

The success of this project can be attributed to the very thorough planning of the flight commit-tee, and the fact that the whole city of Spokane was behind the venture. This, together with the tenacity of the two pilots, resulted in the establishment of a record not matched for many years.

National attention was focused on the flight and on Spokane, with coverage releases of publicity through several channels out of the city. During the flight Marner [not Mamer] gave running accounts in press releases dropped from the airplane. This was before the time of established air-to-ground ra-dio commullication.

The whole city of Spokane turned out on the af-ternoon of August 15 to see Mamer aud Walker take off at 6:00 p.m., pointing the nose of the Sun God for San Francisco.

A refueling contact was made over Mills Field, San Francisco, at 5:25 the next morning. The Sun God had arrived two hours earlier and circled San Francisco until daylight. Fueling was completed at 7:30 a.m., and the plane headed east to Salt Lake and Cheyenne, bucking head winds instead of the antici-pated tail wind normal with prevailing westerlies.

The aircraft requested an emergency night refu-eling at Rock Springs. This was accomplished with unforesecn difficulties because of the limited load of gas that could he carried at that altitude by the refueling aircraft.

When interviewed, Walker stated that the Rock Springs refueling was really a hairy operation, the Sun God flying at 8,000 feet elevation and the refu-eling airplane unable to get off with very much pay-load. He said the flashlight taped to the nozzle of the refueling hose was difficult to distinguish from the stars, and he oriented on the refueling plane by the flames of the exhaust.

During the refueling over Rock Springs, the hose was cut by the propeller of the Sun God. This delayed the contact while the hose was repaired hy the refueling crew. Walker related he was standing up half outside the airplane in the hatch on the fu-selage, pushing up on the belly of the refueling craft to keep the planes apart, while he shoved the nozzle in the filling cap of a tank in the cabin.

Walker said the hose man of the refueling ship, Alphonse Cappula of Spokane, was guiding the pi-lot by rapping him on the shoulder with a gas mea-


suring stick. The refueling pilot had all he could do to hold his plane up at 8,000 feet with the overload condition and the rough, gusty air.

The refueling was accomplished at Cheyenne by daylight, and they then proceeded east. The Rob-bins brothers of St. Louis refueled the Sun God at Cleveland and New York with Challenger Robin airplanes. Another problem encountered at Rock Springs involved a broken fuel line in the Sun God which had to be repaired in flight. This was accom-plished with about ten gallons of gasoline remaining in the tanks at the time the next contact was made with the night refueling plane. This was a close call, but they made it.

The flight continued east. A group of about 100 planes met the Sun God, leading Mamer and Walk-er into New York, where it took over an hour to find the airport through the heavy traffic of well-mean-ing, welcoming aircraft. It may be remembered that they had no radio and no FAA facilities. Their low frequency receiver had expired shortly after their takeoff in Spokane.

The endurance plane arrived over Roosevelt Field in New York at 3:45 p.m. on the 18th, having been in the air for 66 hours and 47 minutes and cov-ering 3,600 miles. Mamer and Walker hovered over the New York area for two hours while taking on fuel and food.

The Spokane Sun God was paced west out of New York by Frank Hawks, the well-known Texas Oil Company pilot. Hawks escorted her through questionable weather to Belfont, Pennsylvania. By

a messagc system, a pre-arranged signal had heen agreed upon, whereby the Belfont airport manager would flash the floodlights on the fieldonce if the weather was OK, twice if questionable, and three times if bad.

It was evident that the British were coming, as the lights were flashed three times, and the Sun God approached Belfont with a low ceiling. Mamer cir-cled the town, flying a triangular course from the town to an airway beacon to the airport. He had to revise his holding pattern to circle the beacon and the town when the ceiling dropped to 200 feet.

They made it into Cleveland where the Robbins brothers again refueled them. Proceding to Minne-apolis, they caught Bookwalter on the ground with the Ryan, repairing a broken brake cable. Walker dropped a note to him, and he followed the Sun God west, refueling as they went between Minneapolis and Aberdeen, South Dakota.

The Sun God was again refueled at Aberdeen by Neil OConnell and Bookwalter, and departed from there to Miles City, Montana. They arrived at 9:50 pm, having encountered intense smoke conditions from forest fires, and with the Wright engine begin-ning to show signs of fatigue.

Walker said that in circling Miles City all night, They were down to two inches of gas in the main fuselage tank when I refueled them at daylight.

I was then operating a flying service out of Miles City and acting in the dual capacity of flight operator and airport manager. We in Miles City had followed the Sun God flight with keen interest and, at the re-quest of Spokane, had a runway lighted with rows of high octane lights consisting of tin cans stuffed with rags, soaked in gasoline, and then lighted.

The local airport board, led by Chairman Buck Winter, were all up at the airport, located at the present site on Lansing Flat, north of the city. A big crowd of people from town arrived to see the Sun God fly over, and our one telephone was chattering with inquiries and reports on the then overdue air-plane.

About 10:00 pm we could hear the Sun God circling overhead, but couldnt see it because of the smoke and the fact that its navigational lights had given up a couple of nights before.

The first indication we had that the plane had arrived was when a flashlight came tumbling out of the sky, looking like a falling star. We retrieved the flashlight on the field. Attached to it was a note from Nick, saying he and Art were about to give up.

Nicholas B. Nick Mamer


The visibility was zero because of the smoke, and the Whirlwind (Wright engine) was operating on only one magneto. If we could figure out some way to re-fuel them, it was requested that we build a fire in the middle of the airport. They would circle the field and try to stay up until they ran out of gas or we had them refueled.

We discussed the problem and, with nothing to lose, immediately took a fifty-gallon drum out on the field and built a big fire in it. Then we got busy. We put our airport board and our student pilots to work, assigning tasks to designated groups. Those boys really jumped in and did a job.

People who participated in the refueling proj-ect included: Buck Winter, chairman of the airport board; Oscar Ball and J. P. Johnson, local business-men; Roy Milligan, Jack Hotaling and Cliff White, who were taking flight training; Bill McFarland, a mechanic; and Tommy Matthews, a cowboy who owned one of our airplanes.

One group procured five-gallon cream cans by night requisition from the local creamery; another group made rope slings with detachable letdown ropes, using regular throw ropes and harness snaps from the Furstnow Saddle Shop. Another commit-tee, including wives, prepared food for all hands, in-cluding the crew of the Sun God. The result was that we were ready to go with the refueling at 3:30 on the morning of the 20th.

At Mamers request, via dropped note, we con-tacted R. L. Wilson, his refueler at Missoula, and in-structed him to fly east to Belgrade to be ready to re-fuel the Sun God there. Our cowboy friend, and my financial advisor at the time, was Tommy Matthews of the T7 Ranch of Gillette, Wyoming. Tommy was both well- and high-heeled, and a handy boy with a rope. We were operating a brand-new J5 Eagle Rock airplane of which we were justifiably proud, and this we used to refuel the Sun God.

Tommy was tied in the front cockpit with a tele-phone linemans belt, the cockpit loaded with five-gallon cream cans filled with Standard Oil Com-pany gasoline.

As daylight broke, we could see the Sun God cir-cling overhead in the smoke. We took off with forty gallons of gas in the cream cans, flying up and over the Sun God to look the situation over. I could see a broken windshield with a rag stuffed in it. Indeed, the oil-streaked old Sun God looked as if it had real-ly had a rough time. There was a manhole in the top of the fuselage behind the wing and as Art Walkers

head and arms popped out, he looked for all the world like a prairie dog in helmet and goggles.

Tommy took a dally around a strut in the center section with a throw rope, snapped on a sling hold-ing a can of gas, and lowered away, hanging half out of the cockpit. I maneuvered into position and let down on the Sun God. We placed the milk can right on the fuselage behind the manhole, where Art un-snapped the sling and lowered the can inside.

By the time he was back we had another can in place, and after delivering the first load we returned to the field for another. We had made the first deliv-ery in about 25 minutes flying time. We made the second delivery in better time, and a note from Art advised us a third load would be enough.

Our navigation in the limited visibility was a problem, so Nick flew the Sun God on a northwest-erly course while transferring fuel. We then turned south with both aircraft until we found the Yellow-stone River. Now we could fly downstream to the bridge at Miles City, adjacent to the airport.

The large supply of milk cans really impressed one old farmer, who came up while we were loading. He asked how we got those cans back.

I told him we had a boy with a rowboat down by the bridge, and that the Sun God crew dropped the cans in the river after they were emptied. The boy picked up the cans as they floated by and returned them to us. The farmer thought that was pretty inge-nious, and so did I. (Incidentally, sheepherders were picking up rusty milk cans for several years after-wards in the Sunday Creek area.)

Nick and Art gave us a goodby wave after the third load, and headed for points west. The Sun God refueled at Belgrade, arriving there at about 8:30 in the morning followed by the refueling airplane. Mamer and Walker flew on to Butte. Here they de-cided to continue to Missoula, arriving about 11:00 a.m. After circling the city for some time in the dense smoke, the Sun God headed west and was contacted by the refueling ship over the Missoula sugar beet factory. They took on fifty gallons of gas, enough for the final leg into Spokane. They also took on a quan-tity of oil, and six chicken sandwiches, furnished by a Missoula cafe.

In the meantime, Bob Johnson of Missoula was doing a land-office business hauling sightseers up alongside the Sun God and the refueling airplane, for five bucks a head. When he first arrived over the city, Nick dropped a note in which he said Hello, Missoula. We are sure glad to be this close to home.


This is Gods country again. We will pull off a little and refuel just as soon as our boys show up with our refueling airplane. Here he is now. Hello to Harry Bell, Bob Johnson, and everybody. Nick.

Both the Sun God and the refueling plane bore the Texaco star on the fuselage and wing tips. The Sun God was painted a brilliant red with the words, SPOKANE SUN GOD in white letters on the side.

The Sun God continued on over the Bitterroots and departed from Montana over Mullan Pass. It ar-rived over Spokane at 2:00 p.m. on August 20, 1929, after five days of continuous flight. Nick circled Spokane, was twice refueled, and took on food and clean clothes for himself and Art. They in turn got all dressed up for a triumphant arrival.

They circled over the city for four hours while Lon Brennan and Ralph Daniels flew both Ford Trimotors with load after load of passengers to get a close view of the Sun God from alongside at $5 a head. Nick, being a practical businessman, wasnt about to land with all that money rolling in, even if he had been in the air for five days and nights. What a character!

Spokane turned out en masse to witness the fin-ish of this historymaking flight. A welcoming ad-dress was given by Charles Fleming, a city commis-sioner who was also airport manager. Harry Wright of the Davenport Hotel prepared a suitcase dinner for Nick and Art, including chicken, tomato and lettuce sandwiches, watermelon, ice cream, cookies and coffee. This dinner was lowered to them, togeth-er with their clean laundry.

In arriving over Spokane, the Sun God crew became holders of one Federation Aeronautique Internationale worlds record for the longest non-

stop flight ever made. It was coincidental in these days of endurance flights, that at the time Mamer and Walker were making this flight, the Graf Zep-pelin was en route from Friedrichshafen to Tokyo via Russia, carrying 20 passengers, a crew of 40, and 50,000 pieces of maiI.

At the same time, a Swiss team in a French-built monoplane were long overdue in an east-west At-lantic crossing from Lisbon to New York. The Graf Zeppelin established a 6,000-mile record nonstop flight, was broken within a few hours by the Sun God completing the first transcontinental, round-trip, nonstop, refueling-in-air f1ight.

This amazing record-breaking flight was com-pleted when the Spokane Air Derby committee or-dered the crew to land at 6:00 p.m. A record of 120 hours in the air, covering a lineal distance of 7,200 miles and a total distance of 10,000 air miles Was established. These figures were recorded and veri-fied by the official FAI checker, and supported by the tape contained in the sealed barograph carried on the flight.

Congratulatory messages from all over the world poured in, including a telegram from Presi-dent Hoover: Congratulations on the successful completion of your nonstop, refueling flight across the continent and return. This is a further demon-stration of the ever-widening scope and practical utility of aircraft.

The first question asked Nick at the reviewing stand was, How did you get that watermelon down a refueling hose?

The welcoming committee on the platform at Felts Field, Spokane, included Charles Hibbard of the Air Derby Association, Harry Wraight, Mrs. N. B. Mamer, Mrs. Vernon Bookwalter, Mrs. Al CappuIa, Phil J. Garnett, H. W. Pierong, James A. Ford, secretary of the Air Derby Association, Harry Heylman, Albion Rogers, John W. Graham, Guy Toombes, R. Insinger, and R. L. Rutter. And there were many others, all of whom had given support to the venture. They had succeeded in bringing public attention to the practicality of a northern air mail route through the Northwest to Spokane, and through Montana.

This article was contributed to Contrails by Sandy Mazzu, who had received it from a friend. Mr. Wiley published his book in 1966 and this excerpt is a ver-batim copy. Since I was unable to contact the author, it is reprinted here without permission. Photos are by Art Walker, where noted, and the author, and were included in the book. -Ed.

Vern Bookwalter piloted the Ryan Brougham shown here, along with Neil OConnell


Elementary, dear Watson, I can hear you say. Perhaps a recitation of the following will help to make it clear.

Billings, Montana lies in a valley alongside the Yellowstone river. Its airport is located 300 feet above, on top of the rim rocks. My copilot, Tommy Chastain, and I had arrived in the early morning hours on a non-stop flight from Minneapolissome 800 miles distant. After having slept most of the day away, now, in the early evening, we were preparing to head for the airport, and our return trip, which was due to leave just after midnight. Our flight was to be non-stop and projected to be just over 4 hours. Weather reports indicated that we would be favored with tail winds and cloudless skies. Checking with By Chamberlain, the station master, we were informed that there would be nine passengers aboard, all male. Maintenance advised the aircraft had been fueled to maximum, giving us an air time in excess of 4 hours.

Tommy, I said, Lets go in for a cup of coffee. And, dont forget to get our thermos filled with hot chocolate. It will taste mighty good down the line tonight.

Right on schedule, at 12:37am, we made our takeoff run. We were flying the Sky Zephyr, No. 82, one of Northwests most modern aircraft. Built by Lockheed to replace the Model 10-A Electra, it was powered with 2 Pratt & Whitney Hornet engines. It had a capacity for 14 passengers and 2 pilots. Normally, we would carry coffee jugs and water jugs aboard.

The moon was shining brightly in clear skies as we started our climb, on course, toward Minneapolis. Our cruising altitude was to be 10,000 feet in order to take advantage of the helping winds aloft. All appeared to be normal, until, passing through 800 feet we felt a severe jolt to the aircraft and immediately the two main gear warning lights changed from green to red.

For some reason, our landing gear had dropped out halfway. Further investigation showed that we had no hydraulic fluid in the reservoir. There was nothing to do but reverse course and return to Billings.

Tommy called Minneapolis directly with our airborne radio. Luckily, transmission and reception was decidedly clear. Advising them of our predicament, we were told to stand by while they studied the matter. While still waiting for the call back, we arrived back over Billings airport and started what was to become a whole night of circling overhead.

With the gear hanging half out of the nacelles, it was not deemed advisable to attempt a landing. There would certainly be a lot of damage done to the aircraft, if such were attempted, with probable injury to passengers and crew most likely. While waiting for their reply, I took the opportunity to go back into the cabin and advise the passengers of our problem, assuring them that we would prevail and ultimately make a safe landing. They were relieved to get the information; most had been alarmed and fearful, not knowing why we had turned around, or what our intentions were. After my visit, they became adjusted to the situation, and settled back determined to make the most of the situation. Many settled down and went to sleep.

STUCK GEARby Joe K imm

Emergency hydraulic fluid reservoir

How many people does it take to make a difference? One?


Minneapolis maintenance finally came back on the air to advise us that there most likely had been a break in the up section of the hydraulic system; that it would be necessary to cut the system in half; that this could be accomplished by pulling up the floorboards in front of the Captains seat, cutting a certain aluminum pipe in half, removing a section and crimping it over to make it pressure tight!

I looked at Tommy, Tommy looked at mewe both shrugged, then got set to follow orders.

Now, most aircraft are not blessed with many tools aboard. Maintenance, ideally, is to be provided on the ground. But we really had no choice; it was repair the system or land with the gear hanging half-way down. I turned the aircraft over to Tommy to fly, then went back to search for a toolkit. Unbelievably, I turned up a ballpeen hammer, a flat file, and a pair of pliers.

Going back to the cockpit with my tools, I got the floor boards up and out of the way, exposing a myriad of piping of all sizes, running fore and aft just beneath the floor-boards. Talking to Minneapolis on the radio, getting exact instructions for locating the pipe we were to sever, I then proceeded to cut the selected pipe with the file. This took considerable timea file is not nearly as efficient as a hacksaw, and believe me I was longing for a hacksaw long before I managed to file through the pipe.

Next step; remove the pipe by loosening the flare nut, using the pliers. With the section of pipe in handnow to crimp it over and pound it flat, to hold pressure. Grasping the pipe with pliers, I placed it across the cockpit door sill and started beating the end with the hammer, thus flattening it out. Then, with a small section over the sill, I hammered at it to start the bending process; proceeding in this manner, I was able to bend the pipe all the way over, then hammer it flat to make a seal.

All this took a considerable length of time during which Tommy continued to fly in circles around the airport. The passengers were attempting to get a little shut-eye in spite of all the racket I was creating.

Re-installing the pipe took but a few moments. Now, the Lockheed Zephyr had a useful little pump, called a wobble pump, which was built into the system to permit the addition of hydraulic fluid, and to pump up the pressure. It was through this opening, and with this pump, that we would add fluid and pump enough pressure to force the landing gear into the down and locked position. But, a serious problem; there was no hydraulic fluid aboard the aircraft.

For the uninitiated, hydraulic fluid is used to

provide pressure to cylinders, which then move to create the desired actions. Most of you are familiar with the use of these systems on common equipment like power shovels, tractorsthe brake system on your car.

Fluids, being incompressible, act as a solid column similar to a steel rod, but capable of going around corners, and being piped to desired locations. Basically, any fluid can be used. However, in normal applications, a special fluid made from oils is used to avoid corrosion, and freezing.

In this particular case, lack of hydraulic fluid forced us to improvise; the first thing we started with, was the drinking water aboard the aircraft. Pumping all this into the system produced no noticeable effect. Next came all the coffee, which we had aboard but hadnt had time to serve the passengers. Again, no noticeable difference.

Tommy, where did you put that thermos of hot chocolate?

Its on the floor, behind my seat, said Tommy.The hot chocolate was the next to go into the

systemstill no success. At this point, desperate measures were called for. Taking the empty thermos back to the lavatory, I did my best to fill it up. Returning with the slightly warm liquid I pumped it into the system. Great! One gear down and locked light came on. But, we still had the other gear hanging out there. I looked at Tommy.

My turn to fly, and I handed him the thermos. He needed no further nudging. I took over the

flying while Tommy went back to contribute his share, which he then put into the system. Again, no change. We were both bone dry, with one wheel still hanging out. It doesnt take a mastermind to figure this one out, does it?

Tommy proceeded to get a contribution from a passenger, using the thermos as the urinal, then pouring the liquid into the system. One by one, through eight passengers, the procedure was duplicated, and still that red light was glowing on the panel. One last chancepassenger number nine. His contribution was added to the system, a few strokes of the wobble pump, and...

SUCCESS! The second gear down and locked green light

came on, glowing brightly. We were now able to land safely, which we did without further delay, or incident, after an all night flight of a little over four hours.

Now, I ask you: Can one person really make a difference?

16 RNPA CONTRAILS MAY 2008

THE YEAR wAS 1949 AND I wAS NINE YEARS OLD. My parents and I had been spending winters in Califor-nia for several years, but we had always driven there or gone by train. We were about to take our first cross-country flight as a family.

Flying sunny and bumpy skies in the 1940s and 1950s

by Bob Fliegel


Perhaps you remember the old airport at Wold-Chamberlain field. I recall most vivid-ly the smallness of the terminal, the absence of chaos, and the well-dressed waiting passengers. We might all have been preparing to board the Queen Mary. In fact, it almost was the Queen Mary. It was a Boeing B-377 Stratocruisermore about that glorious aircraft in due course.

We had luggage galore. Those were the days when luggage limits were expressed in pounds, not pieces, and, just as now, one could pay for additional weight. Carry-on baggage was virtually unheard of. One checked every-thing through, rarely resulting in either lost bags or interminable waits in baggage-claim areas. Of course, the number of passengers on any given flight was much smaller than it later became, as was the number of flights that baggage handlers had to attend. Dad never car-ried our suitcases, instead putting them in the hands of friendly skycaps, many of whom we all came to know by name.

Looking out the terminal window onto the tarmac, I saw the magnificent double-deck-er Stratocruiser. A stunningly gorgeous stew-ardess (now we call them flight attendants), dressed in a smartly tailored Northwest Air-lines uniform and stiletto heels, greeted us at the base of the stairway. Even to a nine-year-old, she was as magnificent as the airplane itself!

The aircraft was all one class. North-west did not introduce first-class service until the late 1950s, but that was okay, as the airlines did not adopt todays sardine-can seating con-figuration until years later. At that time the seats reclined much farther back than they do now, and leg room abounded.

Kids got special treatment. The stew-ardesses gave us little kits of goodiescrayons, coloring books, and the like. Adults received folders of Northwest stationery, postcards, pens, and decals. And remember the gum? It was al-ways peppermint Chiclets. The stewardesses distributed little packs of it during the frequent periods of turbulence and just before landing to help passengers cope with air sickness and changes in cabin pressure. We also received rudimentary ear plugsinternal aircraft noise was deafening by later standards.

Inflight meals were major events and the food was wonderful. Several years later, in 1954 to be exact, I had a summer job on Chuck

Milestone Events at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport

1920 First hangar constructed at the Twin Cities Motor Speedway Field (Twin Cities Airport) to accommo-date airmail service

1923 Airport renamed Wold-Chamberlain Field for local pilots Ernest Wold and Cyrus Chamberlain, killed in combat during WWI.

1926 St. Paul withdraws from the Twin Cities Airport to build Holman Field

1928 City of Minneapolis buys Wold-Chamberlain field from Snelling Field Corporation for $165,000, renames it the Minneapolis Municipal Airport

1943 State legislation creates Metropolitan Airports Commission

1948 Becomes Minneapolis-St. Paul International Air-port (MSP)

1962 Lindbergh Terminal opens

1967 More than 4.1 million people use MSP as passen-ger growth far exceeds projections

1989 Minnesota Legislature establishes long-term plan-ning process to address passenger growth and in 1996 authorizes MSP 2010 long-term plan and funds $3.1 billion in improvements

2001 Humphrey Terminal and Lindbergh Terminals Transit Center open

2004 Light-rail service connects downtown Min-neapolis, MSP, and Mall of America


Saunders Bloomington farm, where I cared for 2,600 laying hens. Saunders, who owned Char-lies Caf Exceptionale, sold the 90 dozen eggs that I gathered each day to Northwest Airlines. Yes, one could get fresh eggs for breakfast!

The trays plugged into holes in the arms of the seats, as there was too much dis-tance between the rows to have allowed the seat-back tray-stowage system of today. Meals were served on real plates, placed on small white tableclothsand passengers ate with real flatware, not plastic forks.

Northwest began offering alcoholic drinks with the advent of the Stratocruiser, advertising: Enjoy the lounge: one drink to St. Paul [from where?!], two drinks to Seattle. Rolling drink cart service didnt exist in those days. One simply pressed the stewardess call button for whatever drink you liked.

The best was yet to come. On night flights (yet to be called red eyes) passengers in the first few rows had access to overhead bunks that pulled down from the area of todays car-ry-on stowage compartments. I remember the mattresses as thick and comfy. For privacy, you pulled a curtain across the bunksit was quite a trick to get into ones pajamas in such a re-stricted space, but at age nine I was a skilled (and small) contortionist.

The Stratocruisers lower deck lounge was accessible via a short stairway from the passenger compartment. Though the lounge did not run the full length of the aircraft, it featured seven seats available for sale in ad-dition to the chairs and tables available to all. During periods of relative calm, children enjoyed climbing between the two decks. Be-cause commercial airliners of that era flew at

Milestone Events for Northwest Airlines

1926 Begins carrying air mail to Chicago with two open-cockpit biplanes1938 Develops first practical aviation oxygen mask, making possible high-altitude flying over the Rocky Mountains1941 Stock is publicly traded: passenger revenue exceeds mail revenue1945 New York service from the Twin Cities via Milwaukee and Detroit; introduces Douglas DC-4, its first four-engine aircraft1947 Northwest Orient service to Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, and Manila1948 Red tail (still in use today) painted on all Northwest aircraft for the first time, creating a trademark known around the world1949 First boeing B-377 Stratocruiser, with first beverage service on U.S. flights1955 First Lockheed L-1049 Constellation; voluntarily becomes the first airline to operate without government subsidy on Trans-Pacific and United States-Alaska routes1959 First jet, Lockheed L-188 Electra turbo-prop airliner1960 Begins fastest U.S. jet service to Asia with Douglas DC-8 aircraft, the airlines first pure jet1963 First all fan-jet operator; Boeing 707-3201968 Leads U.S. airline industry in net profit1971 Cited for national leadership by noise abatement organization1976 First airline approved by FAA to install coordinated flight crew training1978 Deregulation of airline industry1984 After 35-year hiatus, resumes service to China1988 Bans smoking on all North American flights, first major airline to do so1991 Northwest and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines launch joint service, twice-weekly flights between Minneaoplis/St. Paul and Amsterdam2000 First major carrier to offer Internet check-in2002 Northwest, Continental, and Delta sign cooperative marketing agreement2005 Declares bankruptcy because of mounting debts2007 Emerges from bankruptcy


low altitudesoften under 20,000 feetrough periods were far more frequent than on todays flights. I soon became intimately familiar with the air sickness bags tucked into the pockets of seat backs.

I thought the pilot was God. Most of Northwests pilots had been U.S. Navy or Army Air Corps aviators in World War II, and they were rakish fellows indeed. Though there was a door to the cockpit, it was left wide open for most of the flight. Any child who walked for-ward and peeked in was invited to chat with the captain and copilot. On a later occasion, the copilot arose and helped me into his seat! Children who took advantage of this opportu-nity received junior pilot wings before return-ing to their seats. What fun that was!

Yes those were the good old days. Ser-vice was highly personal, airports and airplanes uncrowded, passengers well-behaved, the food plentiful and good, intrusive and delaying se-curity measures unnecessary, luggage quick to be unloaded and rarely lost, fares consistent,

with a sense of adventure about it all. Still, the ride was often bumpy, the cabin smoke-filled, and the cross-country flights longer than we care to remember. On balance, are we better off in todays world of commercial air travel?

You decide.

Thanks to Dru Dunwoody and Pete Patzke of NWA History Centre, Bloomington, for help-ing to confirm the accuracy of my childhood memories.

Any child who walked forward and peeked in was invited to chat with the captain and copilot.

Bob Fliegel is a graduate of Blake School (1957) and Carleton College (1961). He is retired and lives in St. Augustine, Florida.

This was first published in Hennepin History (Hennepin History Museum) and sent to me by some thoughtful member whom I have forgotten, which bothers me a lot since I do appreciate your contributions so much. (It also bothers me that my memory aint so much like it once was.) It is reprinted here with the authors permission. -Ed.

As I pulled into his six... Five bronze Naval Aviators conduct a permanent debriefing in the entrance hall of the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola

22 RNPA CONTRAILS AUGUST 2008

Propellers on the North PacificBy Ron Murdock

23RNPA CONTRAILS AUGUST 2008

Sadly, the business pages report that an airline which began with a small mail contract in 1926, and for eighty-two years thereafter operated with one identity, one logo, is soon to be buried deep within the papers of just another financial transaction. I hope a few fragments of Northwest (Orient) history sprinkled with a tad of tattle-tale telling might be of interest. Please overlook any errors relating to technicalities and/or procedures that have been either mislaid somewhere in my gray cells, intermingled with furloughs best forgotten, and lastly, for preaching to what is left of the choir. Most will already know that following WWII Northwest Airlines was awarded the first American route into the Orient via Japan. A few short years later, Maos Red Army chased our DC-4s out of China. Following the Korean Conflict in the early 1950s, in which NWA began its first and continuing military charters to that country, the general interest in what was then the politically correct label of Orient was at best meager. Made-in-Japan imprints were a decade away from becoming acceptable. Northwest (newly) Orient Airlines was the only American player in the game.

The Pacific routes were pioneered with the unpressurized, low and slow flying DC-4s. With the arrival of the more powerfully supercharged and pressurized DC-6 and 7Cs, the DC-4s became domesticated. Trans-pacific flying in the pre-jet era was vastly different. No radar help existed except for a few random GCA approaches, mostly military. The only VOR Omni Range, and that without the extravagance of DME, was on Oshima Island. The only precision Instrument Landing System west of Alaska was at Tokyos Haneda airport. Almost everything else was ADF/NDB, including Hong Kongs infamous CC circling approach. Many pilots were required to remain current in the DC-4, 6, 7C and Lockheed Electra, a lot of numbers to remember with merely a smattering of standardization. Transistors, computers, and even four function calculators were rumors, and the giant leap to a basic flight director was in its trial stage. Near revolutionary pilotage techniques, as well as the mysteries of the tropopause, jet streams and mountain waves, were about to be deciphered by the twin geniuses of Captain Paul Soderlind and meteorologist Dan Sowa.


The Seattle base, by virtue of its nearness to the great circle routes, performed what was consid-ered the international flight operations. One daily (DC-7C) passenger flight originated in New York and, after stops in Chicago and Seattle and usu-ally Anchorage, Alaska, proceeded to Tokyos Haneda airport via either Shemya or Cold Bay, Alaska. From Tokyo, the flights continued southerly on a variable basis to various stops or crew change destinations: Okinawa, Manila, Seoul, or Taipei. Additionally, a bi-weekly DC-6 cargo flight departed from Seattle which mimicked the passenger flights routes. Those two flights were the sum total of true flying to the Orient. The remainder of designated international flying consisted of one daily passenger DC-6 round trip to HNL and what became daily round trips from Seattle to Anchorage that varied between DC-6Bs and 7Cs.

Serving a seniority sentence of six to eight years was the anticipated wait before expecting a peek at the mystic Orient. But overnight, the purchase of five DC-8s with ensuing training created a new ball game. In December of 1959, with a year-and-a-half seniority I was astonished to be called up for a Tokyo cargo flight via Shemya for the first of what would be-come almost nine hundred trans-pacs over the next thirty plus years.

Flight crews were briefed by NWAs Seattle or To-kyo based flight dispatchers and meteorologists. Each flights minimal time path route, calculated from the meager information gleaned from US weather bureaus barometric and temperature charts, was displayed on a taped-together, hand-drawn depiction of the combined route and projected isobar/isotherm positions. Winds aloft were estimated calculations; actual reports were few. At Shemya and Cold Bay the same flight plan information was received by teletype, deciphered, and charted by the crew.

Pre-flight procedures included individual as-signment of HF frequencies by overseas ARINC. A typical ten and forty assignment translated into: at ten past an hour send a conventional position report prepared by the navigator, and at forty past, a terse report of operation normal, i.e. were likely still on course.

Once enroute, our professional navigators com-pared the prepared chart prognostications with their radio altimeter calculations thusly enabling them to divine mystical suggestions for compass heading. Navigation was truly an art, burdened as it was by the eternally weak loran signals on the North Pa-cific. When conditions permitted, supplemental star

observations and primitive weather radars offset images of the USSRs Kurile Islands were helpful. Because HF radio contacts left a lot to be de-sired, and little or no other traffic ex-isted, sometime searching for winds and lack of turbulence or icing was... well... not exactly what ATC would have condoned. Pages could be filled with navigational anecdotes, some probably even true!

Avoidance of USSR territory was always of primary concern. The Rus-sians were quite unfriendly during the Cold War, and occasionally ran what was hoped to be practice warning intercepts on our flights. That practice continued well into the 747 era, to which many of us can attest, and ultimately resulted in an off-course Korean Airliner being need-lessly shot down.

In-flight duties of both the co-pilot and flight en-gineer involved monitoring carburetor heat during endless hours of IFR, listening to the scratchy HF (no SELCAL) radio with one ear, which usually accom-plished nothing but contributing to future hearing loss, and monitoring fuel usage. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been in the un-pressurized DC-4s, down in the continuous wind, rain, and icing. The ancient tales of very low altitudes flown in order to avoid head winds generated by abnormal low pres-sure systems and to use the salt spray as a de-icing aid became quite believable.

The Sevens fuel systems were more standardized, as I recall, but on different models of the DC-6Bs the fuel tank configurations varied. In order to squeeze every drop of fuel from an emptying tank, the meth-od commonly employed required total focus upon all the fuel pressure gauges. Any fluctuation signaled the rapid actuation of the proper transfer lever. Inatten-tion or hesitation would wake up the passengers and really P-O the cabin crew.

Because we were limited to a scheduled 12 hours on duty, by strange strokes of coincidence many sea-sonal trans-pacs were scheduled for 11:59. I recall one DC-7 departure from Seattle wherein after sev-eral unsuccessful approaches at Cold Bay, we headed back to Anchorage, re-fueled, and with a better fore-cast, were dispatched (legally) to Cold Bay and after a few more tries made it in. It was the longest time I had ever been in an airplane prior to the arrival of 747 double crew routes. (Flight segment times of the props were basically twice that of the current jets.)

With most maps of this scale, cartogra-phers pens obscure and enlarge the smaller islands. This map is composed of several Google Maps screenshots photostiched together. Shemya is so small as to be almost invisible just below where the dot is. -Ed.


Shemya, AlaskaThe main refueling and crew change point was

on the flat and featureless four-and-a-half-mile long island of Shemya, located near the end of Alaskas chain of Aleutians islands. In addition to the NWA operation, the island housed a permanent contingent of military personnel who serviced a gigantic secret missile early warning radar of that Cold War era.

The 10,006 foot long runway led from the waters edge to a group of WWII buildings leased by NWA. Efficient, friendly, Philippine employees staffed the worn structures referred to by most ex-military folks as splintervilles. Adequate cafeteria style meals and snacks were available, and individual motel-2 military-like rooms were the standard. Cockpit and cabin crews from the daily passenger flight only suf-fered overnight layovers. The cargo guys enjoyed three-and-a-halfers and prayed the next bi-weekly flight wouldnt somehow overfly due to weather particularly before the contractual establishment of trip hour duty rigs.

An aviation axiom states that fog and steadily high winds are not co-existent. Shemya disproved that to be inconsistency consistently. Landings were enabled by the Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) Radar owned and operated by NWA. A magician by the name of Pete Watts was expert at routinely talk-ing down our flights through that unique combina-tion of perennial sea fog or rain and strong cross-winds. Many afternoons Pete gathered entire crews in his room for debriefings. We neophytes absorbed a magnitude of information about flying the line in general, and the Orient in particular. As well as the latest gossip. He rarely forgot to add his admonition to, Always remember at landing minimums, with

your slow ground speeds, the runway would rarely appear directly in the windshield dont forget to factor in the big crab angle!

The sole occupations on Shemya were beach-combing for WWII memorabilia, seal watching, sleeping, reading, or poker. Depending upon how many crews were crossing paths, there were some-times two card games in progress, the big boys and the rest of us. Some nights a few NWA ground em-ployees, crew members, and military gamblers gath-ered in an old hangar where, upon a billiard table, enormous heaps of cash exchanged hands during a very loud and quick three-dice game credited to be of Philippine origination.

Lastly, softball competitions between the mili-tary and NWA-based personnel included posted lo-cal rules which forbade the military team from using their radar to track fly balls in the fog.

Cold BaySited near the termination of the volcanic Aleu-

tian peninsula, Cold Bay is much closer to Anchor-age, and in the summer months, benefits from more acceptable flying conditions than Shemya. Layover provisions were much the same as Shemya. Catch-and-release river fishing provided seasonal entertain-ment, with the caveat to avoid disputes should a very tall and furry bully become interested in your catch. And never, never go out at night and complain about noisy vandals playing catch with the garbage cans.

Tokyo LayoversNWA originally acquired a large estate placed

within the nooks and crannies of suburban Shibuya. The property, rumored to have been the home of a

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member of Japanese royalty, was intended primar-ily for use by Tokyo-based functionaries and some crews. A walled enclosure surrounded several build-ings: a large mansion, referred to as the Staff House, containing kitchen/dining room, many bedrooms, other functional areas including a barber shop, and during warm weather, a roof-top lounge. Scattered about the property were additional building annexes and a swimming pool.

The passenger (DC-7) crews normally laid-over at the Staff House, while the DC-6 cargo guys might be spread around the Ginzas downtown areas ho-tels. The exchange rate was 360-400 yen to the dol-lar, which doesnt tell the whole story, because every-thing was generally much, much less costly. A lowly paid co-pilot might get a hair-cut followed by a tra-ditional Japanese hot bath and massage, some great sukiyaki, and still have change from a twenty dollar bill. Tokyos many suburbs, including Yokohama and Kyoto, all very accessible by train, were delightfully crowded, but still overflowing with the atmosphere of old Nippon. The arrival of the Olympic Games in 1964 changed Japan overnight and forever.

Tokyo-SouthI think it would be safe to say that at each and ev-

ery other layover point, Okinawa, Seoul, Taipei, and Manila, hotels were limited to one or two choices. Generally, the poorer countries of the Philippines and Korea had the worst hotels, but were also the most interesting. The Manila Hotel was still a work in progress after its use as the Japanese wartime Head-quarters, and barely resembled the present beautiful edifice. Yellow fever, typhoid, and tetanus shots were required to fly the Orient, but, dysentery was still a concern. Care had to be taken on where and what one ate. A very unpleasant couple of weeks followed by a sojourn in the Tacoma General Hospital dem-onstrated to me the efficacy of being more selective about uncooked food.

Recollections of The DC-7CIts tempting to overlook that aviation in the

nineteen fifties and early sixties in general wasnt so organized, so relatively tranquil. Enroute and ap-proach radar control was still uncommon. It would have prevented two major airline mid-airs that each killed 128 passengers. In 1956, operating with the permissible flight rules of VFR on Top United and TWA collided at 21,000 feet directly over the Grand Canyon. In 1960 a second mid-air collision (same air-lines) spread wreckage and fatalities over portions of

Brooklyn and Newark. That tragedy was attributed to an improper entry into a holding pattern.

Airline accidents plagued the whole industry, and during a short period of years Northwest had its share of misfortunes. Added to the list of airline loss-es were two Lockheed Electras, destroyed by design or maintenance oversights, a B-720B that encoun-tered the jet upset phenomenon, and one DC-4 lost in the Rocky Mountains. And three DC-7Cs.

Everyone has a tale or two about the Seven. Af-ter time in the DC-fours and sixes, ones first taste of the power, sound, and acceleration of the Seven were eye openers. Previous single-engine military encounters with the Pratt and Whitney 3350 engine had little bearing on the airline version of the 7C. Douglas complicated the already complex power plant with the addition of a Power Recovery Turbine, a device intended to recover lost horsepower from the exhaust gases. It was the source of many problems; if a PRT disintegrated, fire and other unpleasant hap-penings could result.

During climbouts in the hours of darkness, es-pecially through dense clouds, the Sevens rich mix-tures generated a bon-fire-like exhaust that could be alarming to passengers and cabin crew alike. A tale in an earlier issue of Contrails described how a stew-ardess brought it to the attention of the cockpit that an engine was on fire. They assured her it was just a normal idiosyncrasy of the Sevens engines to emit a bright exhaust. She replied to the effect: All the way back to the tail? My roommate at the time reported an almost identical experience. Neither of those fires activated warning systems (except for the cabin crew) but were successfully extinguished.

The losses of our three Sevens were all attributed to engine and/or propeller related malfunctions. The first took place approaching Manila. A runaway propeller produced an uncontrollable fire, threat-ening the wing structure, and ditching became un-avoidable. A classic ditching in a dark and tropical rainstorm resulted in one fatality a heart attack.

The second Seven disappeared without forewarn-ing in the general area of Sitka, Alaska. The official consensus for the mysterious disappearance was an-other runaway prop that detached and destroyed ei-ther structure, another engine, or controls. Keep in mind that it was prior to our hijack/nutcase period of aviation.

Again, near Sitka, the third loss was identical: a propeller that would not feather and, in light of past events, ditching was elected. Another text book ditch-


ing was performed in daylight and reputedly most of the passengers didnt even get wet.

The last two issues of interest commonly encoun-tered with the Seven were hot temperature take-offs and icing, both of which can best be illustrated by personal observations.

TakeoffsThe trans-pacs as well as other Tokyo-south trip

segments were usually heavily loaded. (I know, noth-ings changed.) Initiating any takeoff in excess of a prescribed engine cylinder head temperature (CHT) was taboo. Should a CHT become excessive, an engine or engines could begin to detonate and lose power, as displayed on the Sevens BMEP (Brake Mean Effec-tive Pressure) gauges. The procedure developed was... approaching takeoff sequence engines would be run up to 2000 RPM (numbers arguable), the mix-tures quickly leaned to 1000 RPM, producing a lot of air and not much heat. When the rapidly cooling CHTs were acceptable, we would go.

I quite vividly recall one such hot, humid take-off over Hanedas Tokyo Bay. We squeaked off, gear coming up over the approach lights, and a couple of the BMEPs gauges twitched, indicating a possible precursor to detonating. One engine-fixated crew member, focused on engine health, reactively began to squeeze off a bit of power and we began to sink toward the light stanchions. We managed to fire-wall the throttles without blowing anything up and re-sumed normality. One of those recalled aviation sec-onds of non-boredom.

Icing The Sevens air intakes were equipped with in-

ternal screens designed to prevent ice and other un-desirable objects from congesting the airflow to the fuel-injected engines mechanisms. Cockpit activated individual spring-loaded switches enabled alcohol to be sprayed upon the screens so as to melt any ice. Right?

One southward bound summer day near Kagoshi-ma, tooling happily along at a nice and cool cruise altitude somewhere in the high teens, we entered a stratus layer that enthroned the mother of slushy ice. I feel it necessary to mention here that ATC control, on HF frequencies, was necessarily limited by atmo-spheric noise, language barrier, and in the event of abnormal requests, to a large degree, imaginary.

The engines began to alternately falter in spite of applications of heated air, alcohol, and flowery language to the ATC controller who repeatedly ac-

knowledged our need for a lower altitude with a cheerful but obvious lack of understanding or hope we would go away. A propeller would start to wind up and needless to say the solution to recent disap-pearance theories were lurking in three minds. As it developed, the Captain unveiled an unknown, to me, technique. When an engine began to sound truly un-healthy, he would promptly cycle its mixture control off and on, the engine would back-fire and thereby blow the ice off the screen. For a time the cockpit was reminiscent of that before-mentioned three dice game... air, alcohol, backfire, alcohol, scream at ATC, repeat. I recall The Very Cool Captains words to the effect: Dont worry about getting a clearance, were going down with or without it. A product of strict IFR rules, I finally comprehended the comfort pro-vided by the scarcity of traffic. Few Asian carriers other than Cathay Pacific and Quantas were yet to be born. Thankfully we broke out into CAVU con-ditions. Though it seemed much longer, the incident likely lasted for only a few minutes of that aviations extreme un-boredom, and not long enough to dam-age any seat cushions.

Many agree that those few DC-Six and Seven years on the North Pacific were the most memorable hours of our airline careers. We were privileged to sit beside, be enthralled by, and learn from several remarkable pioneers of flight, veterans of Canadas wild and wooly northern region, and those magnifi-cent joie de vivre combat survivors of WWII.

Thirty years laterDragging my bags and butt through JFK customs

after a long 747 journey, a passenger grumbled to me about arriving (a dozen or so minutes) late. I offered to show her a dog-eared schedule illustrating that when I began with the airline, the same trip would have taken us a day-and-a-half. But I could guarantee that it would have been a lot more interesting, more akin to an adventure.

Authors footnote: Perhaps the only airline fly-ing that rivaled those few but remarkable years, were the military passenger and cargo charters that began in1964, became as many as four a day, and contin-ued to the end of the Vietnam War. At one point in time, the Military Air Charter Service informally ap-proached Northwest Airlines to consider the eventual-ity that if China entered the war, the military would be very busy, and by virtue of its extensive experience in the Far East, NWA likely would oversee the entire civilian MAC operation.


My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team Inter-national (ARTI), the worlds most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake. I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildin-gs, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I was the Uni-ted Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.

Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture insi-de crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the triangle of life. The larger the object, the stronger, and the less it will com-pact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you wa-tch collapsed buildings, on television, count the triangles you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most com-mon shape, you will see, in a collapsed building. They are everywhere.

The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under his desk. Every child was crushed to the thi-ckness of his bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, un-necessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didnt at the time know that the children were told to hide under something.

We did a scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did duck and cover, and ten mannequins I used in my trian-gle of life survival method. After the simulated earth-quake collapse we crawled through the rubble and ente-red the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to buil-ding collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would li-kely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the triangle of life.

TEN TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY1) Most everyone who simply ducks and covers

when buildings collapse are crushed to death. People who get under or in objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construc-tion to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earth-quake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed du-ring an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the doorjamb falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed! If the quake is a small quake, the door repeatedly swings shut with the force of a hammer and has been known to break the bones of the hands or cut off the fingers of the person simply clinging to the doorjamb.

7) Never go to the stairs (especially in tall buildings). The stairs have a different moment of frequency (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes

How to Survive an EarthquakeThis article appeared in my inbox many months ago. After you have read it you will probably agree that it all makes per-fectly good sense, but it is contrary to what many of us have been taught. It is particularly important to those of us living in Southern California, but I think its important for all to understand. -Editor


place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads - horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesnt collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged, even if the earthquake does not collapse the stairs, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them, If Possible! It is much better to be near the out-side of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily

survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

10) Water!! The most needed substance you can ima-gine after such an event. Everyone will be searching for it.

NOTE: Aftershocks are normal after an earthquake. Do not be frightened by them. They can do a lot of dama-ge, so you need to be prepared with that thought in mind. If we have an earthquake of 7 we should expect one aftershock at 6, 10 aftershocks at 5, 100 aftershocks at 4, and 1,000 aftershocks at 3. This will all occur in a 21-day period as the earth settles. This is normal, but is where most search and rescue personnel loose their lives. The best policy is to get out and get away from structures until the 21-day period is past. People need to plan at le-ast a 10-day period before government help arrives.

Just a little post-Christmas spirit

There was this fellow who worked for the Post Office whose job it was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses. One day a letter came to his desk, addressed to God in a shaky handwriting. He thought, Oh boy, better open this one and see what its all about. So he opened it and read:

Dear God, I am an 83 year old widow living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had

$100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension check. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope.

Can you please help me?

The postal worker was touched, and went around showing the letter to all the others. Each of them dug into his wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96.00, which they put into an envelope and sent over to her. The rest of the day, all the workers felt the warm glow of the kind thing they had done.

Christmas came and went. A few days later another letter came from the old lady to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read,

Dear God, How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love I was able

to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonder-ful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it must have been those thieving bastards at the Post Office.


To all my friends and relatives, It has been a week since F/A Daryl Jones and I were released from the Trident/Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, India.

First, a sincere and heartfelt Thank you to all for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Believe me when I say, We needed them!

Heres my story: Timeline starts Wednesday night 26 NOV (all times local BOM).

2100: Returned alone from dinner (luckily not Leo-polds). Headed down to 10th floor aircrew lounge to use the computer. Made a couple of calls to the USA using Skype connection.

2155: Returned to room #1510 and realized I had missed my 2150 wake-up call. Noticed message light NOT flashing. Almost immediately heard what sounded like loud fireworks coming from the street level. My room faced the water. Peeking outside, I saw no unusual activity. The noises continued. I started to think that the cadence was unusual and not really like fireworks.

2205: I then decided to call reception to find out if the flight was operating on timeno answer at the front desk. I then called the hotel operatorno answer! At this point I started to think terrorist at-tack. The hotel is extremely customer oriented and they normally pick up the phone on the first ring.

2210: Looked out the window to see if there was indeed any panic in the street. Everything appeared

normal. Nobody running around, etc. I started to think that my imagination was getting the best of me. Surely if there were terrorists shooting up the lobby that the people walking around outside the hotel would be running around seeking shelter. At this point I made an unfortunate and almost fatal tactical error. I decided to go down to the lobby to get some first hand info on our pick-up time.

2212: Still wearing jeans and a golf shirt, I jump into the elevator. As I descended toward the lobby I had a thought. If there are terrorists in the hotel-maybe I should stand closer to the side (by the buttons) of the elevator car. Dont want to give the bastards too easy a target! Elevator doors open and I see a pool of blood directly in front of me. I hear screaming and moaning. I immediately realize that my worst fears have come to fruition. I press the button to close the doors and simultaneously look up past the blood and see a guy, who has just noticed me, hold-ing an AK-47. He turned toward me and fired just as the doors were closing. If the doors had not closed as quickly as they did Im sure I would have been toast.

2215: Ran like lightning back to my room and locked myself i

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