just isn’t cocky and braggadocio enough! Be it Piper Cubs on floats, Ford Tri-Motors on skies, helicopters, big commercial jets, or World War II B-29 and B-24 bombers, like FIFI and Diamond Lil, Merrill has flown them all and has interesting tales about many. His folksy and unaffected style makes his book a very enjoyable read and I highly recommend it.
BILL ANDERS
Major General USAFR (ret)
Chairman, Heritage Flight Museum
Apollo 8
Introduction
I never went looking for adventure but my early interest in flying brought adventure to me. Born into a family of aviators, I suppose I was somewhat destined to become a pilot. My father, Noel Wien, was one of the first pilots to fly in Alaska and his life was full of firsts, including making the first round-trip flight between Asia and North America in 1929.
My mother was not a pilot but she was notable in aviation in her own right, as she played a big role along with my father in the founding and development of Wien Alaska Airlines, the second-oldest scheduled airline in the United States and territories. My uncle Ralph, who died young in a tragic plane crash, was the namesake for the Ralph Wien Memorial Airport in Kotzebue and also contributed much to early aviation in Alaska. My uncle Sig, who eventually led Wien Airlines, was an automobile mechanic when he went north with my dad in December of 1930. He worked for the airline as a mechanic until 1937 when he got his commercial license. He then started flying for the airline out of Nome until my parents sold the airline to him in 1940.
So flying is in my blood and though my father never encouraged me to become a pilot, it was all I wanted to do from a very young age.
Except for the early years when I was building time for additional ratings, I didn’t keep a logbook again for quite a while until I was required to as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) examiner. I cannot tell you how many hours I have to the nearest 10,000 hours. My father kept a very accurate logbook with comments about each flight but I could not imagine that I was doing any flying that would ever be noteworthy, since in my view all the historical and interesting flying had already happened. But as the years have passed, I’ve come to realize that I’ve been part of something that might be interesting to pilots, and others, today. I’ve told my sons: log your flying time with comments about each flight. I sure wish I had. Aviation keeps advancing so today’s doings will be history tomorrow.
There is a lot to be said about the “good old days.” Some of my fondest memories are from the piston engine days when I was scheduled to depart Fairbanks on a cargo flight about 3:00 A.M. on a midsummer day with not a cloud in the sky or a breath of wind. The still in the air is almost deafening. Your senses take on a very different perspective when there is not a sound to be heard except for some occasional birds.
I always felt that I was overpaid because I loved to fly. If I had had other income I would have paid to have the opportunity to fly. Even though this perhaps was less true in the later years when much of the flying was delegated to computers and flying talent was more about computer programming than seat of the pants flying, I still thought it was a great job. I feel very lucky to have had an occupation that I looked forward to every day. It was also an excellent opportunity to see many parts of the world that otherwise I would not have seen.
Part of the joy of flight for me and pilots like me comes from trying to master the airplane and complete a perfectly executed flight, an all but impossible challenge that consumes those of us who are passionate about flying. We can come close but I guess it is like golf. No one has been able to complete a whole game with every shot a hole in one but people are still addicted to golf like I am to airplanes, always trying to get close to the perfect game.
I think more people would travel by air if they realized that it is so much safer to take the airline than go by car. I am basically scared of heights but it is different in an airplane. I can’t really explain why except to say that in an airplane I feel safely enclosed but in other high places it feels like it is just a matter of one false step.
I am a person whose mind has been in the clouds most of my life, staring out the window of study hall as a high school student, hoping to see an airplane fly by on final approach to landing at Weeks Field in Fairbanks, Alaska. I can’t tell you why I have always been drawn to flight any more than I can tell you why the ancient mariners were attracted to the sea and the ships. I am reminded of the poem Sea-Fever by John Masefield, “I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.…” I guess the explanation would be that at some point in time, I came down with sky fever.
My dad very often brought back toy airplanes made by Alaska Natives in the outlying villages.
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The Early Years
In May 1930, there was a picture of my mother and me on the front page of the Minneapolis-St. Paul newspaper, stating that baby Noel Merrill Wien “lays claim to having the most flying time of any ‘aviator’ his age in the United States.” I was eleven weeks old and, lying in a wicker clothes basket, had been flying in a 1930 Stinson with my mother and dad all over the Midwest, visiting air shows and airplane manufacturers. I suspect that my interest in aviation began at that early age, probably through a vibration osmosis from the plane, which my dad had recently purchased to take back to Fairbanks, Alaska, where we lived.
My father was already well known by this time because of his exploits flying in Alaska and his visit to Minnesota, the state where he grew up, was big news. When he arrived in Alaska in 1924, there were few airplanes flying there. Since that time, he had completed the first airplane flight between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the first round-trip in an airplane between North America and Asia, and the first one-way flight between Asia and North America. He also made the first flight north of the Arctic Circle anywhere in the world, as well as many other first flights within Alaska. He did not know he was making history at the time. He just loved to fly and was determined to make a living at it.
My younger brother, Richard, and my younger sister, Jean, and I were not really aware of my father’s fame when we were growing up. He was just fun to be with and he seemed to be well liked by everyone around us.
I loved hearing about the flying experiences of other pilots we encountered in our daily life. My dad did not talk much about his experiences unless he was asked a specific question.
When I was about five years old, I remember asking my mother, “Am I ever going to grow up?” She said, “All too soon.” I have thought about that day, which seems a very short time ago, many times. I was in a hurry to grow up because I was living among airplanes and pilots and I wanted to be a part of that exciting world. I could not wait to get my hands on the controls.
I always looked forward to Dad returning after he was gone for several days because he quite often brought me a present, usually an airplane that the Natives from the outlying villages had carved. I never expected a present other than a toy airplane. I made my first model airplanes out of toothpicks and tissue paper. Eventually, an older friend in the neighborhood, Frank Conway, was kind enough to teach me to build with model airplane kits and to show me how to fly them. In those days, the power models flew “free flight,” meaning they were trimmed to climb making left turns with the help of engine torque and when the engine quit, they would descend in right turns minus torque and hopefully land not too far away.
Later, I got into control line flying. The ignition on the gas engines operated with two flashlight batteries, a coil, and a condenser, which provided spark plug ignition through points that opened and closed on a cam on the crankshaft. When the engine would not start it was usually due to no spark. When this happened, I often persuaded Richard to put his hand on the spark plug to see if there was any spark. When he resisted, I told him that if he didn’t do it, he could not watch me fly. He finally figured out that I had no way of preventing him from watching. As he got older, he blamed his hair loss on all of the electric shocks I forced on him.
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