Tales of An Old Aviator .... The Big Chill
Sorry to hear that Duke. 
I see on another board that Cat Driver says he'll call you this weekend if he's back from Holland. If you got a copy of Larry Milberry's book about Austin Airways handy, take a look at the upper left pic on page 133. Cat Driver told me that's how he met his first wife.
I see on another board that Cat Driver says he'll call you this weekend if he's back from Holland. If you got a copy of Larry Milberry's book about Austin Airways handy, take a look at the upper left pic on page 133. Cat Driver told me that's how he met his first wife.
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Back on page four is the Baffin Island story , this being the continuation thereof.
She had shed her thick woolen arctic geoligist work clothes and was freshly bathed ... oh how she did glide into the main tent , catlike and she did enormous justice to the track suit she so graciously filled. For a moment , I had impure thoughts. Her face was that of a classical beauty framed by wet aurburn hair not yet dried. Her soft , cultured Australian accent was like sweet music to the ear. I swear she could have even turned a Taliban away from goat sex. She introduced herself as Margo but we called her Queenie.
Once the all terrain vehicles had transferred our gear from the aircraft to the tents , the terms of the contract and the safety briefing was conducted. The first item on the agenda was to advise us that normal BHP policy was for a dry camp. We were all aghast as we had our hard earned booty (a handsome reward for the last job well done) stashed and it was to be surrendered. We pleaded on this issue and came to a comprimise since I assured her that we would not violate any agreement that was forthcoming and a very pleasant deal was struck whereby we were allowed to drink the beer in the mess tent only (which we shared with the camp boss and the cook). The whiskey was displayed in a prominent place there to remain untouched until the contract end. All was OK.
Except that , once again I drew the Jack from the back of the pack. A smelly garbage bag in the garbage can in the back of the aircraft sat atop our real booty of vodka and rum.
The contract had been scheduled for earlier in the year so now the weather swung from biting arctic winds to hot , dry spells puncuated by confusing snow pellets , flakes and gusts. Morale was in danger of plummeting as many technical adjustments were being made and particularly frustrated Jerzy , the top technical man who was also the airborne operator and they had all recently been stripped of their flying incentive pay so he was in his rights to fly one trip per day which would prolong our sentence in these barrens. He was constantly having to change the settings on the huge DC/DC converter back and forth with different megahertz settings. I cunningly came up with a solution to this morale problem which I will relate shortly. Then our airborne equipment had to be calibrated involving many short flights up and down the runway at 200 , 300 , 400 , five hundred feet and so on .... This remote gravel strip was a DEW line military site and therefore not availlable to the public and in fact our company paid $5000/day for the use thereof.
Eager to fly , Eric and I flashed up the screaming beast and with a call to Arctic radio began our monotonous flights. I scanned the rugged , steep mountainous , savage terrain to the south where we were to fly our grid at a mere few hundred feet coaxing the drag ridden contraption up steep hills and plunging down towards azure half frozen lakes or savage rushing torrents of blue/green runoff all the while trying to keep the two trailing missiles clear of the ground.
I had just returned my attention to the cockpit when at the same time Eric pointed and screamed "DIVE" and with heart stopping disbelief a Cessna 185 missed us by merely fifty feet or less.
He too , was saved by a mere particle of time. Here , in the big empty sky of the arctic we came within feet of losing our lives.
More to follow .............
_________________
She had shed her thick woolen arctic geoligist work clothes and was freshly bathed ... oh how she did glide into the main tent , catlike and she did enormous justice to the track suit she so graciously filled. For a moment , I had impure thoughts. Her face was that of a classical beauty framed by wet aurburn hair not yet dried. Her soft , cultured Australian accent was like sweet music to the ear. I swear she could have even turned a Taliban away from goat sex. She introduced herself as Margo but we called her Queenie.
Once the all terrain vehicles had transferred our gear from the aircraft to the tents , the terms of the contract and the safety briefing was conducted. The first item on the agenda was to advise us that normal BHP policy was for a dry camp. We were all aghast as we had our hard earned booty (a handsome reward for the last job well done) stashed and it was to be surrendered. We pleaded on this issue and came to a comprimise since I assured her that we would not violate any agreement that was forthcoming and a very pleasant deal was struck whereby we were allowed to drink the beer in the mess tent only (which we shared with the camp boss and the cook). The whiskey was displayed in a prominent place there to remain untouched until the contract end. All was OK.
Except that , once again I drew the Jack from the back of the pack. A smelly garbage bag in the garbage can in the back of the aircraft sat atop our real booty of vodka and rum.
The contract had been scheduled for earlier in the year so now the weather swung from biting arctic winds to hot , dry spells puncuated by confusing snow pellets , flakes and gusts. Morale was in danger of plummeting as many technical adjustments were being made and particularly frustrated Jerzy , the top technical man who was also the airborne operator and they had all recently been stripped of their flying incentive pay so he was in his rights to fly one trip per day which would prolong our sentence in these barrens. He was constantly having to change the settings on the huge DC/DC converter back and forth with different megahertz settings. I cunningly came up with a solution to this morale problem which I will relate shortly. Then our airborne equipment had to be calibrated involving many short flights up and down the runway at 200 , 300 , 400 , five hundred feet and so on .... This remote gravel strip was a DEW line military site and therefore not availlable to the public and in fact our company paid $5000/day for the use thereof.
Eager to fly , Eric and I flashed up the screaming beast and with a call to Arctic radio began our monotonous flights. I scanned the rugged , steep mountainous , savage terrain to the south where we were to fly our grid at a mere few hundred feet coaxing the drag ridden contraption up steep hills and plunging down towards azure half frozen lakes or savage rushing torrents of blue/green runoff all the while trying to keep the two trailing missiles clear of the ground.
I had just returned my attention to the cockpit when at the same time Eric pointed and screamed "DIVE" and with heart stopping disbelief a Cessna 185 missed us by merely fifty feet or less.
He too , was saved by a mere particle of time. Here , in the big empty sky of the arctic we came within feet of losing our lives.
More to follow .............
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Duke - Yer a bloody legend mate.
And I reckon for every one who actually posts wishing you well, there are another 10 lurking and dwelling on your every word.
I often wonder how close our pathes may have passed, fom Oz to the Fraser Valley where I probably got in your way tooling around in some lightie out of Pitt Meadows or Abbotsford.
Hopefully not as close as the Cessna mentioned above though.
Blue skies and following winds mate.
Bon Giorno
And I reckon for every one who actually posts wishing you well, there are another 10 lurking and dwelling on your every word.
I often wonder how close our pathes may have passed, fom Oz to the Fraser Valley where I probably got in your way tooling around in some lightie out of Pitt Meadows or Abbotsford.
Hopefully not as close as the Cessna mentioned above though.
Blue skies and following winds mate.
Bon Giorno
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Just spent the last hour reading through this thread. With a few breaks while I blink a few times to get the moisture out of my eyes. My lunch still sits in front of me, untouched.
This thread is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most moving thing I have ever read. I have no idea how or why I've not seen it before.
Duke, I have no idea who you are, but you are an inspiration to us all. Keep fighting Sir, you have many, many friends worldwide who have never met you, but who are cheering you on.
This thread is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most moving thing I have ever read. I have no idea how or why I've not seen it before.
Duke, I have no idea who you are, but you are an inspiration to us all. Keep fighting Sir, you have many, many friends worldwide who have never met you, but who are cheering you on.
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G'Day everyone.
I have just spent the last week with my two daughters here at home .
My youngest is out from Montreal and my oldest is from Vancouver Island and she came over without the grandkids and we had a special time together. My wife went to visit her grandkids so thank you all for being patient as I owe two endings to two tales.
Duke E
I have just spent the last week with my two daughters here at home .
My youngest is out from Montreal and my oldest is from Vancouver Island and she came over without the grandkids and we had a special time together. My wife went to visit her grandkids so thank you all for being patient as I owe two endings to two tales.
Duke E
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Duke,
I've been following the thread and found it totally absorbing, not to mention moving. You've survived this long, hang in there, fella, and don't let this one beat you!
RT
I've been following the thread and found it totally absorbing, not to mention moving. You've survived this long, hang in there, fella, and don't let this one beat you!
RT
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From the air , our camp , consisting of five tents and an outhouse adorned with the tradional half moon peephole , looked rather inviting as it was perched high on a bank overlooking a river , a green rushing glacial torrent still carving away at its winter mantle of ice that often tore off large chunks that revealed an icy beautiful blue tinge therein.
The snow was mostly gone except for large patches in the shade of the hills where a few caribou would lay in the heat of the day. While still waiting for the nod from HQ to start flying , we were often entertained by a mother fox on the other side of the river who taught her young to catch rodents and she tossed them into the air as they playfully romped in the snow.
A lone wolf , shabilly shedding his winter coat , visited dailly , keeping his distance as did we. Walking was difficult on the rocky tundra and frustrating too as the misplaced rocks rolled underfoot and we quickly named them the devil's marbles. Dailly we were warmed by the low arctic sun but often a piercing icy wind had us holed up in the tents that trembled and the diesel stove moaned in protest.
We waited and we wandered about. ... waiting for the puzzle palace in Ottawa to make up their minds as to which settings to use on our equipment. We ate well and slept and read until it was time to eat again. We understood , however , that the decisions being made in Ottawa were of the utmost importance ... it was diamonds we were looking for ..... we waited. The conditions were ripe for sinking morale , probably the biggest danger in a situation such as this with months to go .
One day , Jerzy , Eric and I wandered down to the huge junk pile left over from the cold war days when this was an advanced radar site hooked directly to Cheyenne Mountain. The junk pile would be as big as a football field and comprised discarded building supplies , office chairs , windows , doors all damaged somewhat. Electrical transformers , wiring , spools , searchlights , a junkies dream. We burrowed our way to the middle and declared that this was to be the site of the Baffin Island Yacht Club and we marked our trail out and scurried out to the aircraft to retrieve our hidden booty of vodka and rum.
We were busy for days as we made a floor from pallets , a skylight from searchlight lenses , a bar made from a huge electrical panel and in electrical tape , a sign "members Only". We took turns at being the Comodore and the honour of sitting in the only chair we had. We could see out to all points of the compass but the entrance was impossible to find. Over the bar there was a huge guage that read Full/Empty ... we had no idea what it was for but we laughed till we dropped foaming from the mouth , fortified with the evil drink.
The All terrain vehicles buzzed about but our whereabouts remained a mystery to the camp members. We slowly conducted interviews based on trust and our membership swelled to five. Morale was at a peak when the word came down to fly which we did with renewed enthusiam. We owed Jerzy for life because you must remember that the operators had been stripped of their flying incentive pay and we replaced that incentive with companionship and vodka.
Eric and I were both new Captains but he had a lot more time survey flying than I and it showed. We would compete in a friendly fashion but his accuracy was remarkable. The high morale translated into very accurate data even though we flew two trips per day of four hours each as we alternated Captains seats. We dragged that contraption up steep escarpments , allowing of course for the two trailing birds on their respective cables, and then we would plunge down towards the azure lakes and brown meadows dotted with caribou.
The call from the operator "End of the line" would far too often occur half way up a steep hill or in the face of an icy cliff where we had to execute a timed , co-ordinated tear drop turn to intercept the next line a mere two hundred metres over. This had to be done within fifty metres but we strived for ten metres. Skill , patience , a good lookout , pre planning , cunning , trust in your crew ... all had to be orchestrated for every turn ... never a cross word ... never any whining.
At the end of the day , when the data was downloaded by the processors we could see our track , every turn , every deviation from altitude and general accuracy. We were proud , and , after supper , we would retire to the Yacht Club.
Our engineer did very well to keep the aircraft in good trim considering the dusty conditions and the refuelling from barrells that the huge engines emptied by the dozens dailly. HQ was stunned as to the rapidity with which we pounded off the kilometres and soon more fuel was to be flown in on a chartered Hawker 748 , a true workhorse in the North and flown by some of the best and most professional crews in aviation.
It arrived on a day when we were timed out anyway and its arrival on that dusty , gusty strip was an event in itself. Bouyed by high spirits we played "hop the barrells" as they came hurtling down the barrell ramp
Up and down the line we flew. Day after day.
And so it was on the barrens.
We flew the contract in half the time predicted by the puzzle palace in Ottawa and we were rewarded handsomely down south in Yellowknife later on.
I must say that the lessons learned were profound. Once egos are set aside and that effort is put into morale it embraces the notion that we are all in this together. So a mission that was turned down by other crews became quite an adventure for a lucky band of brothers.
The snow was mostly gone except for large patches in the shade of the hills where a few caribou would lay in the heat of the day. While still waiting for the nod from HQ to start flying , we were often entertained by a mother fox on the other side of the river who taught her young to catch rodents and she tossed them into the air as they playfully romped in the snow.
A lone wolf , shabilly shedding his winter coat , visited dailly , keeping his distance as did we. Walking was difficult on the rocky tundra and frustrating too as the misplaced rocks rolled underfoot and we quickly named them the devil's marbles. Dailly we were warmed by the low arctic sun but often a piercing icy wind had us holed up in the tents that trembled and the diesel stove moaned in protest.
We waited and we wandered about. ... waiting for the puzzle palace in Ottawa to make up their minds as to which settings to use on our equipment. We ate well and slept and read until it was time to eat again. We understood , however , that the decisions being made in Ottawa were of the utmost importance ... it was diamonds we were looking for ..... we waited. The conditions were ripe for sinking morale , probably the biggest danger in a situation such as this with months to go .
One day , Jerzy , Eric and I wandered down to the huge junk pile left over from the cold war days when this was an advanced radar site hooked directly to Cheyenne Mountain. The junk pile would be as big as a football field and comprised discarded building supplies , office chairs , windows , doors all damaged somewhat. Electrical transformers , wiring , spools , searchlights , a junkies dream. We burrowed our way to the middle and declared that this was to be the site of the Baffin Island Yacht Club and we marked our trail out and scurried out to the aircraft to retrieve our hidden booty of vodka and rum.
We were busy for days as we made a floor from pallets , a skylight from searchlight lenses , a bar made from a huge electrical panel and in electrical tape , a sign "members Only". We took turns at being the Comodore and the honour of sitting in the only chair we had. We could see out to all points of the compass but the entrance was impossible to find. Over the bar there was a huge guage that read Full/Empty ... we had no idea what it was for but we laughed till we dropped foaming from the mouth , fortified with the evil drink.
The All terrain vehicles buzzed about but our whereabouts remained a mystery to the camp members. We slowly conducted interviews based on trust and our membership swelled to five. Morale was at a peak when the word came down to fly which we did with renewed enthusiam. We owed Jerzy for life because you must remember that the operators had been stripped of their flying incentive pay and we replaced that incentive with companionship and vodka.
Eric and I were both new Captains but he had a lot more time survey flying than I and it showed. We would compete in a friendly fashion but his accuracy was remarkable. The high morale translated into very accurate data even though we flew two trips per day of four hours each as we alternated Captains seats. We dragged that contraption up steep escarpments , allowing of course for the two trailing birds on their respective cables, and then we would plunge down towards the azure lakes and brown meadows dotted with caribou.
The call from the operator "End of the line" would far too often occur half way up a steep hill or in the face of an icy cliff where we had to execute a timed , co-ordinated tear drop turn to intercept the next line a mere two hundred metres over. This had to be done within fifty metres but we strived for ten metres. Skill , patience , a good lookout , pre planning , cunning , trust in your crew ... all had to be orchestrated for every turn ... never a cross word ... never any whining.
At the end of the day , when the data was downloaded by the processors we could see our track , every turn , every deviation from altitude and general accuracy. We were proud , and , after supper , we would retire to the Yacht Club.
Our engineer did very well to keep the aircraft in good trim considering the dusty conditions and the refuelling from barrells that the huge engines emptied by the dozens dailly. HQ was stunned as to the rapidity with which we pounded off the kilometres and soon more fuel was to be flown in on a chartered Hawker 748 , a true workhorse in the North and flown by some of the best and most professional crews in aviation.
It arrived on a day when we were timed out anyway and its arrival on that dusty , gusty strip was an event in itself. Bouyed by high spirits we played "hop the barrells" as they came hurtling down the barrell ramp
Up and down the line we flew. Day after day.
And so it was on the barrens.
We flew the contract in half the time predicted by the puzzle palace in Ottawa and we were rewarded handsomely down south in Yellowknife later on.
I must say that the lessons learned were profound. Once egos are set aside and that effort is put into morale it embraces the notion that we are all in this together. So a mission that was turned down by other crews became quite an adventure for a lucky band of brothers.
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Duke,
I have followed your thread out of interest and particularly the courage you have shown throughout your recent illness (I haven't posted on your thread before now...)
Now it's personal, and I can emphasise with you personally and totally - I have just been diagnosed with Myeloma and have begun treatment. I hope I can sustain myself through this difficult time with the same fortitude and courage you have shown over the past years... you are certainly high on my list of people I would aspire to follow, although my flying career has been throroughly tame compared with yours!
Best wishes for your future - FJJP
I have followed your thread out of interest and particularly the courage you have shown throughout your recent illness (I haven't posted on your thread before now...)
Now it's personal, and I can emphasise with you personally and totally - I have just been diagnosed with Myeloma and have begun treatment. I hope I can sustain myself through this difficult time with the same fortitude and courage you have shown over the past years... you are certainly high on my list of people I would aspire to follow, although my flying career has been throroughly tame compared with yours!
Best wishes for your future - FJJP
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Absolutely brilliant
Duke
What can I say - I have just finished reading this whole thread and its absolutely brilliant!
I decided to register there and then to be able to post this message.
Your stories remind me of why I decided to get into this flying game in the first place and why we all put up with everything that goes with it - Its for the shear love of it.
Keep on living the dream Duke and good luck
KE
What can I say - I have just finished reading this whole thread and its absolutely brilliant!
I decided to register there and then to be able to post this message.
Your stories remind me of why I decided to get into this flying game in the first place and why we all put up with everything that goes with it - Its for the shear love of it.
Keep on living the dream Duke and good luck
KE
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Just checking the thread and a little concerned at nothing from dear Duke who I have never met and alas fear will never meet ... I sit at my puter this evening with a small candle lit, chiefly to the memory of my mother (who I miss sorely despite her passing nearly three years) and .. wish to share this candle-light and memories with all aviation types who are in need of friendly thoughts tonight for whatever reason...
Dear Duke hope you are as well as can be expected and I look forward to the next story!! You MUST GET PUBLISHED!!! sorry for shouting but really .... your tales are so wonderful and of a flying era that is gone by that they need to be preserved in print for those of us who have to fly in "Nanny State" conditions!!
luv Brocky
Dear Duke hope you are as well as can be expected and I look forward to the next story!! You MUST GET PUBLISHED!!! sorry for shouting but really .... your tales are so wonderful and of a flying era that is gone by that they need to be preserved in print for those of us who have to fly in "Nanny State" conditions!!
luv Brocky
