Pioneer Bush Pilot: Story of Noel Wien (Bantam Air and Space Series, No. 11)

This is the wonderful true story of one of the great aviation pioneers of the twentieth century. Noel Wien was a young midwestern farm boy in the early nineteen hundreds who's love of flying began the moment he saw his first biplane. In the early 1920's, he became one of the first bush pilots in Alaska and his accomplishments and skill as a pilot soon became legendary. He flew everything from trapper's pelts to the mail and was the "first" to land a plane in many of the most remote areas in the Alaskan wilderness. More than once, he was forced to put his plane down in severe weather and "walk" back to civilization. All of this was accomplished using very primitive maps and no real landing facilities. Wien became an expert at landing his plane on sandbars in river beds. He eventually got to the point where he had a map of the many mountains and rivers in his head and his instincts as a pilot saved him many times. He was a pilot "for hire" who could be depended on to deliver much needed news and supplies to just about anywhere in the wild. What made his exploits as a pilot even more extraordinary was the fact that in those early days of aviation he was doing all of his flying in open cockpit aircraft in severe and sub-freezing temperatures. Navigation was done strictly by vision and he would only fly when his instincts told him he could make it to his destination. He was the first to discover the wreckage of the plane that killed Will Rogers and Wiley Post and he flew a legendary new route across the Canadian rockies to deliver the photographs of that ill fated flight to the newspapers in Seattle. Wien's accomplishments grew through the years and he eventually started Wien Alaskan Airways. His love and dedication to his craft helped to open up the Alaskan wilderness and make it so accessible today