▲ The Okanagan Air Services crew at dinner in the Kemano camp’s main cookhouse in 1952. The two men on the far left are Jock Graham (left) and J. Radovich (right). From left to right, the three men in the foreground on the right are Locky Madill, George Chamberlain and Bill Brooks. Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
Gordy Askin, a helicopter engineer, arrived in Kemano to replace engineer Bill Smith an hour after that accident.
“Bill told me that the machine was stuck 30 feet [nine metres] up a tree and the pilot was okay,” Askin said. “With the help of a construction crew, we managed to get it down using a block and tackle.”18
▲ Gordon Askin, a young Okanagan Air Services engineer, outside the OAS hut at the main Kemano camp in April 1950. Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
▲ The home of the OAS’s crew, in the Kemano camp. Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
Two more accidents occurred that summer on the Kemano project. In the first a construction worker was seriously injured when he walked into the tail rotor of CF-GZJ. In the second, Fred Snell’s machine was badly damaged after it suffered an engine failure, and he autorotated into some rocks. He was unharmed, but the machine was badly damaged. Less than a year later Bill McLeod was involved in an accident that he was extraordinarily fortunate to survive. He told the authors of Helicopters: The British Columbia Story:
I was just heading back out of the [Kildala] pass when the machine started to develop a very heavy bounce; it was bouncing up and down about a foot, and it kept getting worse. I was about 1,500 feet [460 metres] above the ground when it started, and I set down as fast as I could. Then the bubble broke; finally, the engine quit and the tail rotor let go—it was bouncing so badly the tail rotor driveshaft tore right out of the transmission—and I had to dump collective. Even then, I was spinning. All the controls went; the whole bottom end of the engine fell out. I had cartons tied on the racks and they all flew off.
I was lucky, though, I hit on the only patch of snow in the whole area. It was about 80 feet [24 metres] wide and 100 feet [30.5 metres] long on a steep slope. I hit right in the middle of it. I slid down and hung up on boulders. Eighty feet farther on, there was a drop-off of some 500 feet [150 metres] down onto a glacier. When I stopped, I looked up and I could see the sun shining. I said, “Boy, that was a nice looking landing field!” Because I really didn’t expect to [get] out of that one.
Later it was discovered that Bill had cracked a vertebra, but his passenger had only cuts and bruises. Jock Graham, who was by this time Okanagan’s Kemano base engineer, was determined to find the cause of the machine’s failure:
It was a broken yoke [the hub on top of the rotor mast to which the main rotor blades are attached]. Bell had come out with aluminum yokes to save weight, and they sent out a directive that, if you ever had a blade strike, you had to throw away the aluminum yoke. We had bought the machine, JAA, from another company, and I went back through the logbook. Sure enough, I found an instance where they changed the blades. The obvious question was why had they changed them? It took me some time, but I managed to get in touch with the engineer working on the machine when they had changed the blades, and he admitted they had done so because the tip had hit an oil drum. They were a small outfit. They didn’t want to spend the money on a new yoke, so they didn’t throw it away.19
By this time, however, the helicopter crews on the Kemano job had more to worry them than accidents:
Their dissatisfaction was brought into focus by a recent immigrant who spoke little English and whose job was to clean up around the camp . . . The labourer had heard that the pilots were only earning $350 a month while he was earning over $500. Every time he saw the helicopter crews, he would shake his head and begin to laugh. And now that some of the initial glamour was beginning to wear off and the danger becoming more apparent, the helicopter crews grew increasingly resentful. They had played a vital part in the accelerated progress of the whole [Kemano] project and at the same time were the lowest paid employees. This, too, led to some lively exchanges between Carl Agar and his fellow directors down in Vancouver—particularly since profits, which stood at $10,000 in June, had risen to $58,000 by the end of August 1951.20
The problem was not limited to Kemano where at least they were fed and housed while on the job. On projects such as mining exploration and survey work in the bush there was another problem: although customers realized that helicopters were able to cover ten times the area and accomplish in one season what would have taken five, they were shocked with the $100-per-hour rate so they cut back on food, accommodation and supplies. Crews found themselves living in worn-out tents with little or no food. Fixed-wing re-supplies were kept to a minimum, which also meant lack of news and mail. Helicopter engineer Ian Duncan recalled: “No bread, no vegetables, no meat. I didn’t have scurvy, but I was awfully close to it. My gums were all sore and I lost 30 pounds (14 kilograms).”21
But there was good news for the company that year, too. At a dinner given in his honour on October 30 Carl was awarded the McKee Trophy, for outstanding service to Canadian aviation, which had also been awarded to his friend Wop May in 1929. Carl was also dubbed, in 1954, “Mr. Helicopter” by the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute. These events resulted in invitations to speak at the International Air Transport Association’s annual convention and the Helicopter Association of America in Washington, DC, where he met Igor Sikorsky for the first time.
1952
The company underwent another name change in 1952; it now became Okanagan Helicopters Ltd., a name that would last for the next 35 years.
During the year Alf began fitting skid gear and installing Plexiglas bubbles on the first Bell 47s. He also removed the covering on the tail boom, replaced the tail rotor skid and raised the fuel tank behind the rotor mast, converting these machines into 47D-1s, which were altogether more practical machines. Although the Kemano project remained the company’s major contract throughout this period, interest was coming from a number of other sectors, including several levels of government. Federal contracts called for a Bell 47D-1 to support marine research at Cape Harrison off the coast of Labrador and train coast guard and military pilots in mountain flying as well as provide support for a number of federal ministries. On the provincial level the company received inquiries for more topographic surveys and mining exploration contracts. As a result, tension between Carl and some of the directors resurfaced over the financing of additional helicopters.
Meanwhile, the company had grown so much that management needed more staff. Ada Carson was joined in the Vancouver south terminal office by bookkeeper Frances Heron, and, to relieve Carl of administration and operations duties, Glenn McPherson, whose background was in law, politics and business, was hired as vice-president and treasurer. On his first day he was the butt of a typical Okanagan prank: on leaving the office at 6 PM, he found his car stuffed with an inflated life raft. His struggle to open the door and insert the valve remover took quite a while and was observed by all the staff. But after he removed the life raft and returned it to the hangar, he announced that he had found a bottle of whiskey and invited everyone to have a drink. Then he was accepted.
Carl, free now to concentrate on training, produced the first manual outlining operational policy and maintenance and personnel procedures, and he began advising the militaries of both Canada and the United States.
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▲ Carl Agar looks up at pilot Bill McLeod sitting in S-55 CF-GHV in 1952. Photo courtesy of the Kitimat Museum
At Kemano the three Bell 47s now stationed there clearly did not have the capacity to