Ole Flashy
15th Dec 2000, 06:19
Four years ago......Christmas Eve
We were huddled on the floor of the Cessna Caravan amongst the broken parts being flown out of the mine.The heater barely kept up to the minus thirty temperature but we couldn't believe that we had swindled our way on board.
Rob, my co-pilot and I had escaped the frozen hell.
Our mission was to fly the gold concentrate from the Bronson Creek gold mine to Wrangell Alaska and return with 1650 gallons of diesel and two trips a week with groceries.It was as tough a mission as I had ever experienced. The concentrate was in 3500 bags and the storage area was the button of the one way strip at the leading edge of an angry glacier. Because the weather had been so brutal the con bags were building up to an unprecedented inventory of 2300 bags,which, ironically made the take off run shorter as inventory built up.To load these bags sitting on palets with frozen, ice packed runners was hazardous to say the least considering we had to winch them uphill in the C117 and tie them with herc straps. Spilt diesel made this a hellish place to be with thirty to forty knots whipping the snow into a frenzied hell.Frozen windshields made the take offs hairy but only served to put the crew into the jaws of hell.Turbulence, poor vis and a grumpy old radial engined pig made work of the trip
down the frozen Iskut River to Wrangell.The whole camp relied on us and the Bristol Freighter of the competition to the point where we sometimes pushed our luck in order to bring back groceries.The take-off were further tempered by the wrecks of another Bristol, an Otter, a DC3 and a DC4 that had been bulldozed into the snowbank. Another DC4 lay in the river, half covered by gravel, hardly a fitting memorial to Donny, the Captain who was never found. Donny had performed an impossible feat by turning the aircraft back towards the strip after an engine fire had caused an engine to fall off.The crew survived. This hellish flying was ceased as both aircraft were grounded in a blizzard and Rob and I tried vainly to change the brakes when our engineer quit.The Herman Nelson heaters were not enough to keep out the driving, bitter wind as we struggled to put the wheel back on.Days of numbing cold during this grounding period were punctuated by pressure from the mine to fly...after all Christmas was coming and they needed their turkeys and dynamite.Things couldn't get worse....then they did.
A slight relief in the weather tempted us with an attempt but...moisture in the fuel had frozen in the fuel pressure line and the oil pressure guages showed no pressure.We were treated as if we were a pork chop in a synagogue...the Bristol, too was not flying because of a frozen tail wheel pin.
It was now Christmas eve and the Caravan arrived with emergency Xmas food and needed parts.I forget what the bribe was but Rob and I were on board....we had done the manly thing..we decided to flee.
We met the sked flight in Smithers and flew to Vancouver.Neither of us had anywhere to go but we were gone.A very expensive cab fare delivered me to the ferry terminal and at last I arrived on Vancouver Island. I shuffled along the road from the terminal as the snow streaked sideways. You see I was living aboard my sailboat after my wife had left me for some shiny-shoed wimp who would at least be there for birthdays, Xmas and other human functions.Sure, I missed the kids. I was an aviator.
**** , it was cold...lonely too.
I stumbled down to the dock, climbed aboard. Snow covered the boat...with one sweep of my arm I swept the snow from the hatch....
only to reveal a glow down below.
Had I left the light on for two months?...idiot!
I slid the hatch back and.....there was a small lighted Christmas tree...surrounded by these stupid grinning dwarfs all lit up.
I wept....then I howled....my mates had used the spare key and got into the boat.
After all...it was Christmas.
We were huddled on the floor of the Cessna Caravan amongst the broken parts being flown out of the mine.The heater barely kept up to the minus thirty temperature but we couldn't believe that we had swindled our way on board.
Rob, my co-pilot and I had escaped the frozen hell.
Our mission was to fly the gold concentrate from the Bronson Creek gold mine to Wrangell Alaska and return with 1650 gallons of diesel and two trips a week with groceries.It was as tough a mission as I had ever experienced. The concentrate was in 3500 bags and the storage area was the button of the one way strip at the leading edge of an angry glacier. Because the weather had been so brutal the con bags were building up to an unprecedented inventory of 2300 bags,which, ironically made the take off run shorter as inventory built up.To load these bags sitting on palets with frozen, ice packed runners was hazardous to say the least considering we had to winch them uphill in the C117 and tie them with herc straps. Spilt diesel made this a hellish place to be with thirty to forty knots whipping the snow into a frenzied hell.Frozen windshields made the take offs hairy but only served to put the crew into the jaws of hell.Turbulence, poor vis and a grumpy old radial engined pig made work of the trip
down the frozen Iskut River to Wrangell.The whole camp relied on us and the Bristol Freighter of the competition to the point where we sometimes pushed our luck in order to bring back groceries.The take-off were further tempered by the wrecks of another Bristol, an Otter, a DC3 and a DC4 that had been bulldozed into the snowbank. Another DC4 lay in the river, half covered by gravel, hardly a fitting memorial to Donny, the Captain who was never found. Donny had performed an impossible feat by turning the aircraft back towards the strip after an engine fire had caused an engine to fall off.The crew survived. This hellish flying was ceased as both aircraft were grounded in a blizzard and Rob and I tried vainly to change the brakes when our engineer quit.The Herman Nelson heaters were not enough to keep out the driving, bitter wind as we struggled to put the wheel back on.Days of numbing cold during this grounding period were punctuated by pressure from the mine to fly...after all Christmas was coming and they needed their turkeys and dynamite.Things couldn't get worse....then they did.
A slight relief in the weather tempted us with an attempt but...moisture in the fuel had frozen in the fuel pressure line and the oil pressure guages showed no pressure.We were treated as if we were a pork chop in a synagogue...the Bristol, too was not flying because of a frozen tail wheel pin.
It was now Christmas eve and the Caravan arrived with emergency Xmas food and needed parts.I forget what the bribe was but Rob and I were on board....we had done the manly thing..we decided to flee.
We met the sked flight in Smithers and flew to Vancouver.Neither of us had anywhere to go but we were gone.A very expensive cab fare delivered me to the ferry terminal and at last I arrived on Vancouver Island. I shuffled along the road from the terminal as the snow streaked sideways. You see I was living aboard my sailboat after my wife had left me for some shiny-shoed wimp who would at least be there for birthdays, Xmas and other human functions.Sure, I missed the kids. I was an aviator.
**** , it was cold...lonely too.
I stumbled down to the dock, climbed aboard. Snow covered the boat...with one sweep of my arm I swept the snow from the hatch....
only to reveal a glow down below.
Had I left the light on for two months?...idiot!
I slid the hatch back and.....there was a small lighted Christmas tree...surrounded by these stupid grinning dwarfs all lit up.
I wept....then I howled....my mates had used the spare key and got into the boat.
After all...it was Christmas.