Just finished the book Glacier Pilot by Beth Day 1957. Biography of Bob Reeve famous Alaskan Bush Pilot. I bought a biographical signed copy for a $1 at a Unitarian church book sale.
Great stories; learned about reindeer hair affect on aviation oil relief valves, flying on/off mud flats, beaches, river sandbars, crevased glaciers, antiaircraft guarded military fields.... the US Aleutian military buildup prior to Pearl Harbor.
Bob had just a couple crashes and lived to be 78 by being a stickler for safety, adherence to checklists, performing maintenance and rebuilds much earlier than called for by factory specs.
Six years ago I was reading Glacier Pilot by Beth Day, a story about Bob Reeve, one of the pioneers of aviation in Alaska. Now I'm trying to clean out some old drafts, so here are some items that caught my eye.
Alaska
p. 25 Nunatak - A nunatak is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge.
p. 26 Williwaw - a sudden violent squall blowing offshore from a mountainous coast.
Before Bob went to Alaska, he spent some time in South America. Pan American Grace airlines, aka PANAGRA, used several different airplanes when they started email service to Santiago Chile (page 38).
The Aviator (2004) - Howard and Kath Flying Scene (Spanish Subtitles)
New-to-me terms:
p. 38 sin publicadad - Spanish for 'without advertising'.
p. 41 Hegira - the journey the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers took from Mecca to Medina.
p. 43 gambling - "Ship, Captain, and Crew" is a dice game where players bet tokens (like "gold booty") and try to roll a 6 (Ship), 5 (Captain), and 4 (Crew) in that order, within three rolls, setting them aside to collect the score from the remaining two dice (Cargo) for the highest score to win the pot. It's a push-your-luck game that can be played for ante to a pot, with the winner taking all the tokens.
Flying between Santiago Chile and Buenos Aires Argentina means flying over the Andes mountains, and since aircraft weren't pressurized, you needed to find a pass. Uspallata Pass with statue of Christ was one.
I'm reading Glacier Pilot by Beth Day about pioneer airplane pilot Bob Reeve. In 1933 he flies a family out to Nome, Alaska. While there he picks up some work scouting for polar bears for an outfit making the movie Eskimo(page 37). The film crew is encamped inTeller, Alaska, about 50 miles northwest of Nome. It's not much of a place now, but during the booms years it boasted a population of 5,000.
Ice Pilots NWT Bonus Features - Lockheed L 188 Electra
Glacier PilotBob Reeve eventually started his own airline using Lockheed Electras. Poking around must have triggered Google because YouTube served up this entertaining little clip.
I'm reading Glacier Pilot by Beth Day and on page 122 she mentions Tillie the Toiler. Tillie was a nationally syndicated comic strip that ran from 1921 to 1959.
In 1933 Rosie Robot makes an appearance and eventually we are faced with a dilemma:
All though the 1930s the world seemed to cry out for robots to alleviate the endless toil of the working class while simultaneously realizing that jobs were already impossible to find for a quarter of the workforce. - Steve Carper
Sounds just like the same argument about jobs I've been hearing forever.
Poking around, I found that John stole a totem pole from an island is southern Alaska, took it to California on his yacht and had it set up in his backyard. Barrymore was a millionaire back in the 1920's when being a millionaire meant something. Kind of like being a billionaire now.
