Winging It! , livre ebook

W INGING I T !
W INGING I T !
J ACK J EFFORD
Pioneer Alaskan Aviator
Edited by Carmen Jefford Fisher and Mark Fisher with Cliff Cernick
Copyright 1981 Carmen Jefford Fisher, Mark Fisher, and Cliff Cernick. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopyring, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of Alaska Northwest Books .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jefford, Jack
Winging It!
Reprint. Originally published: Chicago:
Rand McNally c. 1981.
1. Jefford, Jack. 2. Air pilots-Alaska-Biography.
I. Fisher, Carmen Jeffort. II. Fisher, Mark. III. Title. TL540.J43A3 1990 629.13 092 [B] 90-414 ISBN 978-0-88240-816-3
PHOTO CREDITS: Jack Jefford s personal photographs: 5, 33, 34, 88, 89 (top), 90, 92, 93 (top), 94, 95, 191, 193 (top), 195 (top), 196 (top), 275 (bot.), 279 (top), 280 (bot.), 281, 284. University of Alaska Archives-Jack Jefford collection: 35, 36 89 (bot.), 91. National Park Service: frontispiece, 87, 93 (bot.), 189, 277 (bot.). Federal Aviation Administration: 190, 192 (top), 193 (bot.), 194 (bot.), 196 bot.) 276, 277 (top), 279 (bot.), 280 (top), 282, 283. Courtesy of May Nock: 278. U.S. Air Force: 194 (top), 195 (bot.). Fish and Wildlife Service: 274-275.
Originally published by Rand McNally Company, 1981
Book compilation MMVIII by
Alaska Northwest Books
An imprint of Graphic Arts Books
P.O. Box 56118
Portland, OR 97238-6118
(503) 254-5591
C ONTENTS
Foreword by Carmen Jefford Fisher
Map
P ART 1 R IDING THE G RUB L INE
1 Becoming a Pilot
2 The Voice from the Sky
3 Riding the Grub Line
4 Barnstorming
5 Coyote Slayer
6 Crossroads
7 Broken Bow
8 Flying the Weather
9 Hastings
10 Kelly One and Kelly Two
P ART 2 F OUL -W EATHER F LYER
1 Nome
2 Working the Mines
3 Henry Gumm Goes South and Brother Hansen Returns Home
4 To Cordova in the Vega
5 Foul-Weather Flyer
6 The Crackups
P ART 3 T HERE S MORE TO THE JOB THAN FLYING
1 The Girls and the Godfather
2 Gold Fever
3 The Reindeer Study
4 Progress in the Cockpit
5 Crash on the Darby Mountains
6 Groping Up the Yukon
7 Guiding the Columbia
8 The Evacuation of Jack Devine
9 The Stinson-A Trimotor
10 The Marshal and Miss Alaska
11 Missing Pilots
12 The Reindeer Acquisition
P ART 4 P ATROL P ILOT
1 Signed on the CAA
2 General Buckner
3 The DLAND at West Ruby
4 Injured Man Aboard
5 War
6 The Queen Mary
7 Horning s Ordeal
8 The Boeing 247
9 A Tale of Two Cessnas
P ART 5 K ING C HRIS
1 King Chris
2 Wartime Flight to Attu
3 A Night at North Shore, Umnak
4 The Waipio Inveiglement
5 Shungnak Snafu
6 Torture Flight to Seattle
7 Summer Landing
8 CAA Christmas
9 They Come and They Go
P ART 6 G OLD M EDALIST
1 Hinchinbrook Beach Landing
2 Tragedy at Port Heiden
3 Fuel Oil Blues
4 The Rescue of Cliff Uzzell
5 Juneau Backfire
6 The Black Cat s Path
7 Taylor Weather
8 Fiddling Around in Nome
9 Gold Medalist
P ART 7 I NTO THE JET AGE
1 N-123
2 Trouble in the C-123
3 The Flying X-Rays
4 Sabreliner Jet School
5 McKinley Rescue
6 Back to Nome on the Iditarod
Index
Epitaph: Jack Jefford, 1910-1979
F OREWORD
I always loved hearing my father tell stories of his flying adventures-tales of a time when few landings were normal, weather information and navigational equipment were sketchy, on-the-spot repairs were sometimes a necessity, and any patch of open ground might be used as a runway. Resourcefulness and daring were part of a pilot s job description.
My father was sometimes called Father of the Airways due to his position as chief pilot for the CAA (later the FAA) in Alaska from 1940 to 1972. The airplane is still Alaska s lifeline, and he was a trailblazer for the sophisticated flight aids we enjoy today.
Winging It! was created over a five-year period as Dad told his stories onto eighteen tapes. My husband-Mark-and I transcribed, organized, and edited the stories into book form, with additional help from the late Cliff Cernick, then Public Information Officer for the FAA s Alaska Region.
Many people offered moral support, enthusiasm, and suggestions: family and friends who encouraged us; Dorothy Revell, Dad s secretary for many years and honorary family member; Professor Charles Kiem; and the University of Alaska Archives.
Collaborating with Dad was a great pleasure for us, and we always strove to keep his storytelling style intact. We were just a few stories away from completing the final draft when Dad died in 1979. He loved to tell a good yarn, and I hope you ll enjoy the many yarns in this book, perhaps even hear the chuckle in his voice as you read.
C ARMEN J EFFORD F ISHER
A NCHORAGE , A LASKA
2011

PART I
Riding the Grub Line
1
Becoming a Pilot
I saw my first airplane when I was six years old and felt such an incredible sense of wonder that I still remember the scene vividly.
The disassembled biplane, an old Wright Pusher, had been shipped into town on the Burlington Railroad to serve as an attraction for the 1916 county fair at Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Goggle-eyed, I watched the aircraft take shape as the double wings were attached to the fuselage. Others at the fairgrounds soon crowded around in fascination. Like me, most people in western Nebraska had never before seen an airplane.
It was unforgettable. Chain-driven propellers whipping up billowing clouds of yellow dust ... the sturdy biplane taxiing down the alfalfa field in the bright Nebraska sunshine. ... Then, the plane lifting free of the earth ... circling over the gaping crowd ... circling over me, a six-year-old boy caught from that time onward by the wonder, the excitement, the adventure of flying.
My younger brother, Bill, and I got our first taste of actual flying in California, where my family spent the winter of 1925. Diligently we saved our money until we had $10, enough to buy two tickets for a ride in an old OX Jenny based at Santa Monica s Clover Field. Ten dollars seemed like a small fortune, but we were eager to fly and more than willing to pay.
That pilot must have enjoyed kids because he gave us quite a lengthy ride. Gazing out through the flying wires as the earth s features grew smaller, feeling the wind in my face, watching the dance of the rocker arms atop the OX-5 engine-the flight was pure magic to me.
While growing up in Nebraska, both Bill and I worked with my father, a building contractor. Dad s favorite saying was, Idle hands are the devil s workshop. Rather than aid the devil, Dad always gave Bill and me plenty to do.
One day we were pouring a basement in Ogallala. My job was to mix the cement according to the prescribed formula: toss a bucket of water into the cement mixer, add two shovels of cement, eight shovels of sand and gravel, mix well, then dump the batch into the wheelbarrow. It was heavy work-a tiring process, repeated over and over without respite.
Suddenly I heard a low drone from the sky, and the boredom vanished. Far overhead one of the early mail planes was headed west. Cement mixing was temporarily forgotten. That guy up there is sitting down, I thought, and flying s a hell of a lot better way of life than mixing cement!
That was the exact moment I decided to become an aviator, as pilots were known in those days.
But how do you become an aviator in Ogallala, Nebraska, in the heart of the Depression? First you need to get a paying job. I didn t have much money, and flying lessons cost a bundle.
Bill and I found work with the Goodall Electric Manufacturing Company. Bob Goodall, a jeweler, was also an inventor whose creations included a watch-cleaning machine, a jeweler s soldering iron, and a spot welder for orthodontists. But sound systems for movie theaters comprised the largest part of Goodall s business. Bill and I worked in the machine shop assembling heads that could be attached to outmoded silent or sound-on-disk projectors, enabling them to accept the newly popular sound-on-film movies.
I started working for $18 a week. Periodic raises brought my salary to $27.50-practically every nickel of which went for flying lessons. My instructor, a character named Jack Westfall, owned an OX Travelair. For ten bucks he provided fifteen minutes of instruction. For thirty-five you d get a whole hour, but since the shorter lessons usually ran a few minutes over, they appealed to me as the better deal.
After a few lessons, one thing began to disturb me a bit. None of Westfall s students ever soloed, though he gave them all sorts of flying time. I think he valued his Travelair to such an extent that he wasn t about to let any soloing student bust it up for him.
While taking lessons from Westfall, I met Major Carlos Reavis of Denver, who operated a modern flying school equipped with a Waco F and a Lycoming Stinson. If I could save up enough money to enroll, I knew I d be able to solo-something Westfall wasn t likely to let happen in Ogallala.
The Depression bankruptcy of the Curtiss-Wright Flying Service, a national organization with fifty-two flying schools and overhaul shops, hastened my departure to Denver. Major Reavis told me that the company s misfortune had made available an OX Robin, one of the first cabin monoplanes, powered by a World War I surplus engine.
By hocking everything I owned and borrowing money from Goodall and all my friends, I was able to come up with the $500 to buy the Robin, number NC 377E, and with an extra $250 to pay for flying lessons.
I rented a $3-a-week room on Larimer Street in a rundown area of Denver inhabited mostly by hookers. Though raunchy, the restaurants suited me just right. You could get breakfast for fifteen cents, lunch for thirty-five cents, and dinner for forty-five cents. The T-bone steaks served for dinner covered your plate, but they were only an eighth of an inch thick.
The honky-