1953
By the early 1950s the value of the helicopter had become widely recognized, and the industry expanded quickly. In the United States the 1,000th machine came off the Bell Aircraft assembly line, the new Hiller UH-12A was gaining in popularity, and Sikorsky Helicopters announced the construction of a new plant in Stratford, Connecticut, while on November 16, 1953, Igor Sikorsky was featured on the cover of Time magazine. In England, Westland Aircraft UK Ltd. signed a contract to build the Sikorsky s-51 under licence, and it went into commercial service with British European Airways (BEA) as the “Dragonfly.” The British company Autair Helicopters was formed, while Sabena Airlines of Belgium inaugurated a helicopter service from Liege to Brussels and began operating helicopters in the Belgian Congo. Within a few years the helicopter had become a fixture in the aviation world and the “eggbeater” nickname began slowly disappearing.
▲ Hotel Kotcho, Kotcho Lake, BC (east of Fort Nelson). Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
Although Okanagan’s involvement with the Kemano project continued throughout 1953, the company signed other contracts that year, including one supporting gravitational surveys for Imperial Oil in the Fort Nelson area, another that used Bell 47 CF-FZN with a Canadian Armed Forces survey team in Norman Wells, Northwest Territories, and yet another exploring for uranium using a specially adapted scintillometer, a device for detecting and measuring radioactivity. Farther south, Okanagan transported personnel and equipment during the construction of the 712-mile-long (1,145-kilometre) Trans Mountain pipeline running from Edmonton to Vancouver, and after it was completed in the fall of 1953, Okanagan was awarded the contract for routine inspections and other flight services. The inspections, carried out three times a month at 200 feet (60 metres), checked for rock slides, a common occurrence in that terrain. Later a new four-passenger Bell 47-J model provided an improved visual inspection platform for this work. In July Trans Mountain employed Okanagan Helicopters to install a special telephone line along the pipeline and place high frequency transmitters at Hope and Kamloops in BC and at Brookmere, Blue River, Edson, Jasper and Black Pool in Alberta.
▲ Engineer Frank Ranger with Bell 47 CF-FJA in a “maintenance hangar” in Kotcho Lake, BC, in 1953. Photo courtesy of Gordon Askin
On Vancouver Island pilot Pete Cornwall and engineer Sig Hubenig were assigned to a MacMillan Bloedel contract, at that time one of BC’s largest forestry companies, for the control of gophers and squirrels in the area of the Harmac pulp mill. The contract called for a helicopter, flying at 45 mph (72 km/h) at a height of 100 feet (30.5 metres), to seed bait over a logged-out 120-acre (48.5-hectare) section of rolling hills at Copper Canyon. The company borrowed Bell 47D CF-FSR, which was fitted with seeding equipment, from a pest control company in Yakima, Washington. When it arrived in Vancouver, it had to have floats installed before it could cross the Strait of Georgia, a 35-minute trip, and then on landing it was immediately changed back to skid gear. On MacMillan Bloedel’s recommendation, the provincial forestry department requested that additional seeding be done from September to the end of October.
Meanwhile, pilot Don Poole and engineer Eric Cowden were sent north with the brand new Bell 47D-1, CF-ETQ, for a job that was supposed to last ten days, but it was five and a half months before they returned to Vancouver. In an interview in May 2009 Eric described that season—his first—in the field:
In the spring of ’53, Don Poole and I set off for Stewart, right on the tip of northern BC about 900 miles [1,450 kilometres] from Vancouver . . . On the way . . . we had a terrific head [outflow] wind; we were so heavily loaded and on floats that I remember us chugging along at about 20 mph [30 km/h] into a stiff northwesterly wind when I saw two ducks fly past us doing quite nicely. We landed on the American side of the border, which we weren’t supposed to do, but we had to gas up somewhere. After refuelling, we set off up the Portland Canal. We were going nowhere, and it was one of those low overcast days, which means we could not climb out of the Canal and land. There wasn’t even a boat around—nothing.
Finally, Don said, “What do you think?”
I said, “Well, Don, my watch says we’re not going to make it.”
“You know what?” he replied. “So does mine.”
There was no place to land, so we just kept chugging along up the Canal, doing a little praying. Finally we turned a corner and got some shelter from the wind. When we landed at Stewart, I drained the fuel tank and we had two gallons [7.5 litres] left, enough for about six or seven minutes of flying.26
Their first job with CF-ETQ involved flying between Stewart, BC and the Granduc Glacier, the site of a copper mine that operated sporadically over the years due to the fluctuating copper market. On completion of that job, they moved on to other mining exploration projects and, as Eric recalled, that’s when things started to go downhill:
From Stewart we went [north] to Bobquin Lake with two geologists—MacKenzie and Warren were their names—who believed in living on bacon, bannock and beans with a little tea and sugar. That’s about all they had in their so-called camp. For several weeks we worked out of a little island in the middle of Bobquin. We stayed there for five weeks, and I’ll never laugh again when people make jokes about beans.
From there we moved to Hottah Lake and then on to Chukachida, more or less in the middle of the province. We were with some hotshot mining promoter now—I remember he was worth lots of money and behaved accordingly. The first day we were there he came into the camp in a beat-up old [Beechcraft] Travel Air . . . and the next morning the weather was socked right in, right down to the deck. I heard him say to the party chief, George Radisics, “What’s the weather like, George?”
And George said: “It’s socked in tight, but I think it’ll clear by noon.”
The promoter said, “That’s not good enough. I want it to clear now!” I guess he thought he could buy the weather, too.27
▲ Jock Graham during maintenance on S-55 CF-GHV, Okanagan Air Services’ first S-55, in 1953. Photo courtesy of the Kelowna Public Archives
Eric had other problems. The fixed-wing aircraft used on that operation, the hotshot promoter’s venerable Travel Air, was in sad shape, and the company operating it had not provided a licensed engineer. Instead, Eric was expected to inspect it and sign the logbook when it was due for its 100-hour maintenance check. However, every time the Travel Air, which of course was on floats, was pulled up onto the beach to be loaded or unloaded, he had heard what he described as “a funny noise.” When the time came for the inspection and his signature in the logbook, he got someone to grab the tail section and rock the machine up and down. Sure enough, one of the mounts on the struts that connected the floats to the fuselage was about ready to fall off. Eric refused to sign the log until the aircraft had been repaired—something that could not be done in the bush—and he was exposed to ferocious recriminations from the mining promoter. In the end the promoter and his crew took off in the Travel Air for Prince George, leaving Don and Eric sitting alone in camp for three days.
The next move for Don Poole, Eric Cowden and CF-ETQ was to Yehinika Lake, a little to the southwest of Telegraph Creek, BC. This was still Eric’s first season in the bush, and even though CF-ETQ was brand new, it was giving trouble:
We’d been having the usual snags with those Franklin engines . . . We were constantly having to change plugs and dig the lead out of the electrodes, and the fan belts kept letting go. When they did, they’d smack into the back of the firewall, scaring the hell out of the pilot . . . and then he’d have to get [the helicopter] down on the ground within a couple of minutes and shut down or the engine would over-heat.
Those were routine problems, but this engine began to give me much more [grief] than that . . . I thought the timing of the magnetos was out. Trouble was I didn’t have a manual with me on the trip, and this was a 200-horsepower