This expansion required the hiring of more pilots and engineers. The 1952 intake included pilots John Porter, Tommy Gurr, Bill Brooks and Fred “Tweedy” Eilertson and engineers Stu Smeeth, Keith Rutledge, Hank Ellwin, Ivor Barnett, Rod Fraser and Eric Cowden. Eric, who was another ex-QCA engineer trained in the RCAF, had managed QCA’s component overhaul shop. He had to get a Bell 47 licence before he went out with a machine, but the Ministry of Transport (MOT) did not have a licence program at that time. He recalled:
Alf Stringer said to me: “Take this manual home with you and study it.” The following week I went to the MOT inspectors [who were] also learning the mysteries of the helicopters as well.22
▲ Sikorsky’s “Mountain Men.” Photo courtesy of Sikorsky Historical Archives
In the spring of 1952 Jock Graham became the first Okanagan employee to attend the S-55 course at the Sikorsky plant in Connecticut. As it was nearing completion, Carl joined him to do a conversion course. About this time the first commercially certified S-55 went to Los Angeles Airways, but a tail rotor failure during a demonstration there resulted in an accident that caused several casualties and the grounding of the machine until Sikorsky could locate the problem and incorporate modifications. This accident delayed Carl and Jock in the east for another three weeks, but when they finally headed home with their first S-55, CF-GHV, they stopped in Cleveland to pick up Bill McLeod who had been in Toronto, and he completed his conversion training on the way to Vancouver.
When CF-GHV arrived in Vancouver on Saturday, April 24, 1952, the press was on hand, and the Vancouver Sun ran the following story:
Largest helicopter ever seen at Vancouver Airport landed today. A Sikorsky S-55 helicopter was flown from Bridgeport, Connecticut, by Carl Agar of Okanagan Air Services. The aircraft was for the Alcan Kitimat project.
The biggest “egg beater” ever seen at Vancouver whirled in at 100 mph [160 km/h] and dropped like a leaf on the runway. It took 35 hours from Bridgeport . . . to Vancouver . . . Carl Agar . . . himself was in high praise of the $190,000 aircraft.23
▲ Kemano base pilot D.K. “Deke” Orr (left) and engineers Jack Rich (centre) and Gordon Askin (right) with S-55 CF-FBW in 1953. Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
By early May S-55 CF-GHV was working in Kemano, lifting men and material up to the Kildala Pass. Because of the loads it could carry, crews found it invaluable; it had only been in service a few days when it was called on to ferry drums of oil to a bulldozer that had broken an oil line while clearing snow at Tahtsa. CF-GHV was followed within a few months by the second S-55, CF-FBW, which on one occasion hauled over 123 tons (111.5 metric tonnes) of lumber up to the summit camps in 116 hours over 18 flying days. (When the load included 1,000 pounds (455 kilograms) of dynamite, the slings were set down as gently as possible.)
▲ A Bell 47 piloted by Tommy Scheer in Kildala Pass during the Kemano project. Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
The first of the new Bells to arrive was CF-GZJ, which was to be used ferrying workers from Kemano to Tahtsa to work on the Dala River section of the power line. Due to weather conditions, the machine was unable to fly into the worksite and had to be hoisted by crane aboard the Nitnat, the Alcan workboat, for the journey upriver with pilot Don Poole and engineer Gordon Askin along for the ride. Once on location they operated it from a barge moored to the workboat. Soon after the machine arrived, alternate pilot Fred Eilertson was flying it to Tahtsa when he spotted a snow scooter upside down on the lake. Dropping down to investigate, he found a couple of badly injured men. He loaded the first on board and took him to East Tahtsa before returning for the second man whose condition was more serious. As the pass to Kemano was closed by the weather, he flew him to the Burns Lake hospital 100 miles (160 kilometres) away.
In June, Fred Snell and Carl arrived with the second new Bell, GZK, closely followed by engineer Gordon Askin. Next to arrive were pilot Leo Lannon and engineer Bill Smith to take over CF-GZJ, while Deke Orr and Gordon Askin returned CF-FZN to Vancouver to work on the Palisade project.
Heavy spring rain made it impossible to keep the Kemano road open. As a result, Okanagan was called on to move over 11 tons (10 metric tonnes) of freight and 390 passengers by helicopter, even flying out striking miners from the Horetzky Creek project. By May camps had been established along the transmission line with a fly camp at the summit of the pass, but with snow still on the ground, the pilots had to choose their landing sites very carefully. In some cases, the helicopter would hover above the chosen site while a man on snowshoes packed down a landing area and then set up a red wind flag. The first load always consisted of precut lumber, and this was followed by a carpenter and labourers to build a 20-by-20-foot (six-by-six-metre) landing platform. Only then could the machine begin to bring in the riggers to work on the transmission lines.
The work crews came to appreciate the helicopter’s assistance as they were able to complete their tasks quickly compared to past bush construction jobs. The story of “Smoke” Kole, the rigging foreman for Morrison-Knudsen, the company that built the transmission line, was a good example. When he first came to Kemano, he was afraid to ride in a helicopter and spent most of his time climbing up and down mountains and accomplishing very little. Finally, with many misgivings, he consented to ride in the helicopter, and as the summer wore on, he became a convert and was soon flying up and down the mountains several times a day. He told one of the Okanagan pilots that a helicopter was the answer to a rigger’s prayer as it was a lot easier to rig downhill than uphill. Instead of 75 percent of pay being spent on travel time, only about eight percent was charged by using a helicopter.24
During the summer, Art Fornoff, the Bell Helicopter representative from Los Angeles, visited the project and was so impressed that he phoned Bell’s head office (recently moved to Fort Worth, Texas) to arrange for Jim Fuller, Bell’s publicity agent, and photographer Tom Free to come to the Kemano project. When Free came back from taking pictures of the pass section, he shook his head and said in his Texas drawl: “Man, we have fellows back in Texas who think they can fly helicopters. Man, they ain’t seen nothing.”25
By the autumn of 1952 the road over the pass section was complete, and the passenger rate and amount of freight carried by Okanagan’s helicopters declined. On October 8 the diversion tunnel at Nechako was sealed off so that the reservoir could begin its four-year filling phase. A spillway system for returning spawning salmon had been installed at Cheslatta Lake, and Okanagan pilots Pete Cornwall and Lock Madill spend ten days taking officials around to check on the fish; Alcan was hoping that the fish population would increase due to changing the water’s direction of flow. By December a weather station had been established on the summit, staffed by three men and supplied by helicopter; they had a long-range radio and managed to keep current on local and world news throughout the winter.
1952 Annual Report
Since starting the Kemano operation the previous year, Okanagan Helicopters had carried out a number of medevac flights taking injured men to hospital and, as a result, the project had only one fatality. The period 1951–2 had seen flying time increase by 196 percent, flight hours by 204 percent, passengers by 212 percent and freight by 375 percent. At year-end the company’s annual report announced profits above $68,000, and the directors approved an order for a Sikorsky twin engine s-56. The civilian version of this machine, which had been designed for the US Marine Corps, was said to be capable of carrying 26 passengers. Unfortunately, the machine never materialized.
▲ Camp