pilot.
“I can teach you to fly in eight hours of flying time. It will cost you $40 an hour,” Miller told Noel. “A demonstration hop will cost you $10.”
The ten minute demonstration flight on May 6, 1921, in a Curtiss JN4, Jenny, extended into twenty minutes. Miller tested his prospective student by flying loops, spins, stalls, and wingovers. If he survived with a grin, the instructor believed, he might make a pilot.
Noel loved it. He had dreamed of flying for years, and now that he was in the air he could hardly believe it. He peered at the world below, seeing miniature buildings and farm fields and fences as through the wrong end of a telescope. He watched insect-size cars crawl along dusty roads. The dizzying aerial maneuvers Miller flew didn’t make him airsick; they thrilled him.
When they landed, he advanced $40 to Miller for the first four fifteen-minute instructional hops.
FLYING A JENNY
Miller taught him to fly in an OX-5-powered Jenny, a biplane (two wings) which had no airspeed indicator; he had to judge its speed by the pitch of the air passing across the many wires that held the airplane and its two wings together. There was no turn and bank indicator. A coordinated turn depended on the sensitivity in a pilot’s rear; flying was largely a seat-of-the-pants experience; wind on one side of an open-cockpit-occupied pilot’s face could hint at an un-coordinated turn or skid.
The water-cooled ninety-horsepower OX-5 engine of the Jenny required ten minutes to pull the airplane to 2,000 feet. Its payload was 490 pounds, which included the pilot, a passenger, gasoline, and oil. It was far from the docile airplanes of the mid-20th century; it could fall into a stall and spin with little warning. There was little glide to it; it dropped like a rock without power. He learned how, from altitude, to identify a corn field, other grain fields, or a potato field for emergency landings, which he could expect at any time. The OX-5 was not as dependable as later engines.
During his third hour of dual instruction, he landed the Jenny without the instructor touching the controls. By his fifth hour, he repeatedly took off and landed without the instructor’s help.
An occasional individual is born to be a pilot. It requires perfect coordination, an understanding of the controls and their use, and an appreciation that the airplane moves in three dimensions. Noel Wien was such a person. He was ready to fly solo after eight hours of instruction. At the time, a newly soloing pilot had to guarantee to replace a broken airplane before being allowed to take it up. Noel couldn’t afford to pay for an airplane, or the necessary bond that would allow him to solo. After eight hours of instructions, he left the Curtiss Northwest Company without soloing.
Flying was everything Noel had dreamed it could be. He was hooked. The sense of freedom that comes from soaring high, seeing the earth as the birds do, the ability to dive, turn, to skim near clouds, is almost indescribable. There is an intense delight in flying in an open-cockpit plane like the Jenny, the type that dominated the early years of aviation. He could look straight up into the boundless sky, or straight down to the earth; his vision was wide open. The airplane seemed to be almost a part of his body. He was not enclosed and bound, as in a cabin plane; there was a simple and wonderful sense of freedom.
When those who flew in cockpit type planes for years converted to cabin planes, most complained, “I can’t see like I could from a cockpit.”
They got used to it. Being warm was their reward.
FIRST FLYING JOB
Shortly after completing his dual instructions, Noel looked for a job of any kind that involved airplanes. His instructor introduced him to E. W. Morrill, a former Navy pilot who owned a World War I surplus Standard biplane which he planned to use for barnstorming. Noel agreed to work as his helper. He would build time as a pilot by helping to fly the airplane cross-country between barnstorming gigs. He would also help maintain the airplane, collect passenger’s money, or whatever came along. In exchange he was to receive food and lodging; no dollars.
Early during their barnstorming tour they arrived at a small Minnesota town over which Morrill performed the usual noisy barnstormer’s gyrations with the plane to attract the attention of potential passengers. He then headed for a small field from which he planned to operate. To Noel, in the front cockpit, the field looked too small. Since Morrill was an experienced pilot, at first he wasn’t concerned. But when Morrill tried to land downwind and with a slight crosswind, he took notice.
Twice Morrill tried to land, having to pull up at the last moment each time when it became obvious the plane wouldn’t stop before running into a stand of corn. As Morrill tried the same approach for the third time, it was apparent to Noel that a landing could result in disaster. He seized the control stick, pushed the throttle wide open, and lifted the plane clear. Once at a safe altitude, he glanced back at Morrill, who, to Noel’s surprise, raised both hands, indicating he had relinquished the controls. Noel was now in charge.
He circled, flew an upwind approach over tall trees at the edge of the field, and dropped the plane into the tiny field with a perfect three-point landing. The Jenny stopped a few feet from the corn. Noel cut the engine and looked back at Morrill. He had transgressed by seizing control from an experienced pilot, and the owner of the airplane at that. He expected a strong rebuke, perhaps he would be fired.
Instead, Morrill said, “Good work. I couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing.” Wien had sensed the wind direction, which told him the proper direction from which approach to the field. In essence, that was Noel’s solo flight; he had command of an airplane at a critical time.
Morrill further acknowledged Noel’s skill by telling him to fly the plane out of the little field. “We won’t barnstorm from here—the field is too small,” he said.
Noel barnstormed with Morrill into August, 1921, by which time he had logged about seventy hours as a pilot.
BARNSTORMING AND A FLYING CIRCUS
For the next three years he barnstormed with various partners. He also worked for a flying circus that operated from Minnesota to California, and on to Texas. He became skilled in flying a loop with a wing-walker standing on the top wing; he flew parachute jumpers, and did acrobatics during circus performances.
In later years as a pioneering Alaska bush pilot, Noel Wien’s reputation was that of a safety-conscious, conservative pilot who commonly flew around rugged country and big timber to provide an extra margin of safety in event of a forced landing. Except in an emergency, he refused to challenge bad weather.
Alaskans who knew and admired the safe and careful Noel Wien would likely have been surprised to learn about the dust-’em-up and turn-’em-over kind of flying he had done in his early years as a pilot.
ALASKA BOUND
Wien’s early barnstorming and other flying jobs never lasted more than a few months. He was at home at Cook, Minnesota in May, 1924, when he was hired by James S. “Jimmy” Rodebaugh, Senior Conductor on the Alaska Railroad who had accumulated a stake trading furs along the rail belt. Rodebaugh thought airplanes could be useful in Alaska. He had bought two crated J-1 Standard biplanes from airplane dealer Marvin Northrup at Robbinsdale, Minnesota (not related to the airplane builder Northrop).
Northrup improved each of the Standards by removing the bucket seat from the front cockpit and replacing it with a bench that allowed room for two passengers; he replaced the landing gear with the more rugged De Havilland DH-4 gear; the Hall-Scott original motor was removed and the motor mounts rebuilt to accommodate the more powerful Hispano-Suiza 150 hp motor. He removed the vertical radiator, replacing it with a nose radiator, giving the pilot better visibility. The airplanes were assembled, flight tested, and, still in their olive-brown military paint, except for their red, white, and blue tails, and the Army Air Service roundels on the wings, disassembled and crated, ready for shipment.
Mid-summer, 1924, at Fairbanks and the two Hisso Standard J 1s owned and shipped to Alaska by Jimmy Rodebaught (on left). During the summer of 1924 and 1925 these were the only two airplanes