That night Carl did some serious thinking about the next day’s work. Under the best conditions, the Bell 47 B-3 had a normal operating ceiling of 3,000 feet (915 metres); the clearing he was to land on was a full 2,300 feet (700 metres) higher than that. He knew that above 3,000 feet he would encounter problems with air density, winds and downdrafts, as well as temperature changes, especially since it was August and the temperature was above normal, but he still hoped that he could develop a technique that would enable him to get the men into the places they wanted to go. When he left on his own the next morning, he had no clear picture of what he intended to do, but to monitor the temperature, he stuck an ordinary household thermometer in the cockpit; the rest would be based on his judgement and skill.
Barney Bent, writing many years later, recalled how that day had gone for Carl:
This type of helicopter flying had never been tackled before, and the slight distortion of Carl’s facial muscles was the only sign of stress. To his dismay he discovered that, when he flew at slow speed alongside the cliff face, he was gripped with acrophobia, a fear of heights, which he had never experienced when flying fixed-wing in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). When he touched down on a tiny ledge at high elevation, he felt his palms sweating and had to prevent himself from closing his eyes and freezing at the moment that required all his attention and co-ordination. He managed to conquer his fear and went on to complete even more difficult landings in places no one had ever reached on foot. He explored the helicopter’s potential and discovered its characteristics in the unpredictable air currents and extremes in temperature and humidity.5
Later Carl told Barney that the tiny clearing on Mount Cheam had been his “mountain-flying schoolroom.”6
The following day Norman Stewart became Carl’s first passenger, and he deposited him at the landing spot he had selected about a half-mile below the mountain’s summit then returned to pick up Emerson and Ernie McMinn of the Surveyor General’s office. The landing site was not ideal as it was at the foot of a glacial cirque—a ridge of gravel in front of a little lake with a wall of ice behind it—and cold air poured off the ice like a waterfall. The three surveyors hiked to the top of the mountain and on the way discovered the remains of an air force Lockheed Lodestar that had crashed and burned there in 1942. Carl returned for them just as fog was rolling in.
For Ernie McMinn this was the first of many helicopter survey operations with Carl Agar, and he would later remember the thrill of “sailing over the ground at 60 mph (95 km/h).” He also remembered that:
The helicopter had four little wheels . . . and if you landed on a slope, the machine would start to roll. There were no brakes. I remember once they tried to take off from the top of a snow slide and couldn’t quite make it so they had to land again on the slope and rolled all the way down the snowbank—about three or four hundred yards [274–366 metres]. Eventually they reached a flat space and stopped. After a good deal of soul searching, they took off again.
But still, apart from the wheels, the biggest problem was getting off with a load when you were high up about five or six thousand feet [1,500 or 1,800 metres]. You had to carry a theodolite and tripod, which weighed about 35 pounds [16 kilograms], and a camera, which in those days weighed about 30 pounds [15 kilograms]. So Carl came up with the idea of landing on the edge of a drop-off. He’d take some extra revs. I can remember some of those takeoffs: the rpms were dropping back from 3,600 to about 2,800, and the thing was falling, but it was falling clear and gradually we’d pick up the revs again.7
To address the challenge of landing on a slope without brakes—and while they waited for Bell to develop hydraulic brakes—Alf came up with a temporary fix using strips cut from old car tires and wedges between the axles and the tires. He also told Bell that they needed a fixed skid-type undercarriage—which duly arrived a year later.
Once, when asked to land on the top of another mountain, Carl went off by himself to look at the location. On his return he informed the survey boss that he had found the spot but had to chase a black bear off the clearing before he could land. On completion of the three-week trial survey, the surveyors assured Carl and Alf that their helicopter would be fully utilized the following season.
Landing survey crews at high altitude was a turning point for OAS in the exploration of the rugged areas of British Columbia. Surveys that would have taken weeks or even months on foot or horseback could now be completed in a matter of hours. To the surveyors, prospectors and explorers that he carried, the helicopter was even more valuable than a float plane because of its ability to hover when it could not land. During later topographic work, Carl was able to make safe landings up to 8,200 feet (2,500 metres), and he could see that once Bell Helicopters developed a more powerful engine, the ceiling would be even higher. With his background as an instructor, he also realized that he would need to train other pilots, and once he was confident with mountain flying, he began to make notes about what he had learned. His edited notes formed the basis of a flight manual that would eventually be used by Canadian, US and other armed forces military pilots.
*
Carl Agar was not the only pilot on a survey project in 1948. Al Soutar of Kenting Aviation flew CF-FJA, a Bell 47D, in the Watson Lake–Teslin area of the Yukon for the Dominion Geodetic Survey that summer.8 He reported 210 flying hours hampered by bad weather, and F.P. Seers of the Federal Geodetic Survey reported that the operation was not a success due to unfavourable weather and limited payloads of the helicopter above 4,000 feet (1,220 metres).9
Later that year OAS was offered a contract with a logging company to conduct a survey to estimate the amount of timber contained in an inaccessible area in Knight Inlet, about 155 miles (250 kilometres) north of Vancouver. Carl was advised that a successful operation would result in additional contracts, giving them a fresh source of revenue, so he and Alf flew the helicopter up the coast and landed at a small floating base camp near the site. The logging engineer provided aerial photographs to help identify the area and a detailed list of the company’s expectations. The helicopter proved to be perfect for this type of work, able to cover a vast area in a few weeks. From the aerial survey, the logging company was able to read growth patterns and species, assess the general condition of the timber and plan logging roads and service areas sites. This was the start of an operation that years later would lead to Okanagan’s dedicated heli-logging division.
In early September 1948 Carl and Alf were back in Vancouver but, not finding any work opportunities, returned CF-FZX to Penticton where they reluctantly took on another spraying job. Fortunately, the spray, which was to prevent apples falling off the trees prior to harvest, was in diluted form and did not clog the equipment. This time, the fruit growers were happy with the results.
By the end of 1948 the working relationship between Carl and Alf had strengthened and become indispensable to the business. Initially Barney Bent had intended to take a more active part in the operations, but as long as it had been only a fixed-wing operation, there had been insufficient work and revenue to support an additional full-time flying position, and he had only flown on weekends. Once the fixed-wing operation was placed in the hands of Andy Duncan, Barney had been gradually drawn back into his family’s business, and eventually he stopped flying even on weekends. He stayed on as a director of the company and was associated with the company’s activities into the 1980s. He remained one of Carl’s staunchest allies.
During their flights around the province over that summer, Carl and Alf realized the enormous potential for helicopter work in forestry and mining surveys and wildlife and forest control. They discussed moving the operation to Vancouver in order to be closer to potential resource industry customers, but in the end they decided to remain in the Okanagan. Coincidentally, about this time the city of Kelowna decided to build a new airport with a 3,000-foot (915-metre) runway, just north of the existing Rutland field, hoping to get full licensing for hangars and shop facilities as well. When they agreed to rent space to OAS, the OAS board of directors decided to move the fixed-wing operation to the new airport. About this time Andy Duncan stepped down as chief pilot for OAS to return to the more lucrative business of fruit growing. Under his direction the flight school and charter operations business had considerable success during