sold the L-5 years later, the new owner burned up the airplane, like I almost did, the same way.
That fall, when I brought Sam’s airplane back to Fairbanks, I had another adventure. As always during the preflight at Hughes, I religiously drained the gas tanks and the fuel strainer to remove the water that often leaked though the gas caps when it rained. I got some water out of both tanks and the strainer and I thought I was all set. On the way to Fairbanks the gas was getting low in the right tank and I thought that it might be a good idea to switch tanks before it was completely empty. Shortly after switching tanks, the engine quit. That was a big surprise. I knew there was still fuel in the first tank but didn’t immediately switch back to it. Instead I wasted time trying to get the full tank to feed. Finally, I switched back to the low-fuel tank expecting it to come to life. It did not. I tried everything to get it to start. There was no time to even be scared. My only thought was, Another fine fix I’ve got myself into. I looked for a place to land and the only spot was in the Melozitna River, which was more like a creek than a river. I figured I could touch down in the water and slide up on a gravel bar. As I was setting up for the approach, the engine started to bark but it would run only at idle then would quit when I advanced the throttle. I figured out that I could gradually increase the throttle settings before it would quit and it became apparent that eventually I could get full power back. The question was, would it happen before I ran out of airspace? I had to decide whether to keep messing with the throttle or commit to the river. Having recovered some power caused me to overshoot the river but I got the engine to come back to life just over the trees.
The next year, Sam brought the airplane back from Hughes himself but he did not switch tanks until the tank ran out. By that time he was over the Yukon River and he was able to dead stick it into the river. After that we figured out that even though we were draining all the tanks and the fuel strainer, we were not switching to the other wing tank and draining that line between tank and engine. Another lesson learned.
Sam White was like a second father to me and Richard. In the way he displayed a very high standard of conduct and integrity, he reinforced the guidance we received from our dad and became another important role model for us. When my son Kurt was born, my wife and I asked Sam if he would be Kurt’s godfather. He was glad to do it and took his role very seriously.
WE SOLD QUITE A FEW CESSNA 140S BUT when the sales started to decline, my parents turned the distributorship over to Uncle Sig and he formed a new company called Alaska Aeronautical Industries.
In the spring of 1948 my parents decided to move back to Seattle. We drove the same 1941 DeSoto back down the Alaska Highway accompanied by our good friends Doug Millard and his mother, Clara Millard, who were on their way to Iowa. The gumbo mud was as bad as ever and on some stretches we had to be towed through it by D-8 Caterpillars that were stationed along the highway.
The first time we encountered a bad gumbo mud area, the D-8 Caterpillar was idling along the side of the road but the drivers had gone to lunch. Doug, who had just turned sixteen, jumped out of their 1942 Ford and ran over to the tractor. His mother gasped, “Douglas, what do you think you are doing?” He jumped up into the cab and the next thing we saw was a big puff of black smoke blow out of the exhaust. The D-8 spun around and headed for our cars. After we helped him hitch up the cars, he towed them through the mud. When the drivers returned from lunch they were amazed to see a kid doing the driving. We thought that we would be in a lot of trouble but the only thing the driver said was, “Are you making any money?” More cars had gathered behind by then so the drivers took over the duty.
My parents bought a house in the Seattle suburb of Lake Forest Park and I enrolled at the University of Washington to start classes in the fall in aeronautical engineering. I got a job for the summer as gas boy at the nearby Kenmore Air Harbor, a flying service and flight school at the north end of Lake Washington. Most of my pay went to working toward my float rating and commercial license.
My main flight instructor there was Bill Fisk. He was a World War II–B-24 pilot and Kenmore Air’s main pilot and instructor for many years. I learned much from Bill. He taught me how to loop and barrel roll the Taylorcraft on floats, along with night takeoffs and landings in that plane. I learned that when the altimeter gets close to what it was reading when the plane was on the water, I should set up a 200- to 300-feet-per-minute rate of descent at an airspeed that sets the touchdown attitude for landing. This is the same procedure that is used for landing on glassy water. That training served me well in later years during my many glassy water landings in Alaska.
When anyone got their float rating it was customary to throw them into the lake. When I got mine, four Kenmore employees dragged me toward the water. I acted limp and lifeless until we got to the T in the dock when I suddenly straightened out, causing the two guys holding my feet to go flying into the lake. I was then able to drag one of the two holding my arms into the lake with me, which was probably not the most sportsmanlike thing to do. Tom Wardly and Ted Huntley, two of the guys who went into the water with me, went on to have very distinguished flying careers.
In June 1949 I traveled from Seattle to Wichita, Kansas, with Uncle Sig to pick up two new planes for Wien Airlines. I flew a new Cessna 140A back to Alaska and Uncle Sig flew a Cessna 170. Shortly after arriving in Fairbanks with the new Cessna 140 and returning to my usual summer job at Wien, one of our operations people came to me when I was sweeping floors and said that I had a charter flight. Whaaaaaaat? I thought. I am going to fly a charter? I had not been hired as a pilot and didn’t yet have my commercial license.
I did not know my passenger but we took off and I flew around Fairbanks showing him the sights. When we landed, I found out that he was Jerry Merrill, the brother of Russell Merrill, my father’s good friend who had disappeared in 1929. The airport in Anchorage was named Merrill Field after him. Sometimes I am asked what the relationship is between me and Merrill Field. I would like to say that it was named after me but I don’t think that would fly. Every year after our flight, Jerry Merrill sent me a telegram wishing me happy birthday. When he died he willed me $500.
While the rest of the family remained in Seattle, I spent the summer with Sig in Fairbanks working odd jobs for Wien Airlines and getting as much flying time as possible. In July, I passed my commercial check ride with Hawley Evans, founder of Fairbanks Air Service, and a highly respected Alaska pilot.
About the time that I was going to go back home to Seattle to start another year at the University of Washington, I received an offer to fly a North American Navion to Sun Valley, Idaho. Apparently the airplane had been flown up to Alaska by a pilot who thought the route was too sparse and treacherous so he left it with Bob Rice in hopes that he could find someone to fly it back to Sun Valley for him. Bob, who had previously flown for Wien Airlines as chief pilot and had since left to start his own charter service, had two Navions of his own that he was using for charter work so he checked me out in his. My high school friend George Morton flew to Seattle with me and then I delivered the plane to Sun Valley.
That winter, I aborted my college year after completing the first quarter in 1949 to get to work on my instrument rating with Harry Cramer on a Link Trainer he kept in the terminal building at Boeing Field. After I completed my required twenty hours of Link, Harry talked me into working on my Link instructors rating. As part of my training I operated the Link under Harry’s supervision, teaching primary instrument students and operating the Link for Boeing pilots and nonscheduled pilots flying to and from Alaska. In March of 1950 I earned my instrument rating, followed a month later by my Link instructors rating. Every time I qualified for a new rating, it was a great feeling, a sense of another stepping stone completed. Then I would focus on the next one.
THE DAY AFTER I PASSED MY INSTRUMENT FLIGHT check, my dad and I flew to Wichita to pick up a brand-new 1949 Cessna 170A that the family had purchased for personal use. While there, we visited the Mooney factory. The Mooney Mite single seat airplane had recently been introduced and they were very anxious for my dad to fly it. He told them he would take a pass but that his son would like to fly it. They didn’t seem to be very enthusiastic about that idea but they reluctantly gave me a cockpit check and turned me loose. I flew it for about thirty minutes and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Even though it only had 65 hp, it felt like a little fighter. On landing, it didn’t touch the ground when I thought it would and