As if trying to absorb the variety of strange and wonderful sights bombarding my eyes was not enough, I couldn’t help but notice that my olfactory system was also doing jumping jacks. The smell is not bad by any stretch of the imagination. But it is distinctive. It’s a smell of oil and rubber, of sweat and grease, and of hard-working men in coveralls manipulating pieces of metal to do what they were designed to do: to fly.
To fly. Humankind has long dreamed of defying gravity and taking to the skies. The Chinese are said to have discovered that kites could fly, as early as 400 BC, a discovery that jump-started humans into thinking that we could fly too. Around that same time, a Greek philosopher, scientist, and statesman named Archytas is said to have created what is widely credited with being the first self-powered flying machine: his bird-shaped, steam-powered model, the Pigeon, reputedly flew over 200 metres (650 feet). In 559 AD, Yuan Huangtou, the son of Chinese Emperor Yuan Lang, became the first person to fly on a large kite when he was forced to jump from the Tower of Ye by Gao Yang, who had usurped power from Yuan Lang. He survived the flight, but was later executed. Europeans began building and flying their own gliders around the ninth century AD.
Most of the work done on human flight in the hundreds of years between the Renaissance and the explosion of aviation research in the eighteenth century took place on paper, with great minds like Leonardo da Vinci dedicating their efforts to a variety of designs. Da Vinci made the first real studies of flight, with more than a hundred drawings illustrating his theories. Da Vinci’s best-known aviation-related sketch—the ornithopter flying machine—was never actually built but is the basis for the modern-day helicopter.
The modern era of aviation began in earnest in the late 1700s, as a series of French scientists brought ballooning to the forefront of the public’s consciousness. In late November 1783, brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier launched the first hot air balloon with human passengers. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that the flight would be manned by condemned criminals, but a couple of men successfully petitioned for the honour. Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the marquis François d’Arlandes drifted gently in the wood fire-powered craft before coming to a landing in a field some eight kilometres (five miles) away.
With the successful flight of hot-air balloons, work on a steerable “airship” continued throughout the 1800s. These airships were extremely fragile and their existences short-lived, so focus again turned to defying gravity with a craft that was heavier than air, particularly in Europe, where innumerable prototypical airplanes were tested, re-tested, and re-tested yet again.
British aristocrat George Cayley was the first scientist to identify the four aerodynamic forces of flight—weight, lift, drag, and thrust—and their relationship to one another. In 1853, Cayley built a three-winged glider that carried his coachman 275 metres (900 feet) across Brompton Dale in northern England before crashing. It was the first recorded aircraft flight by an adult (Cayley reported having a ten-year-old boy fly one of his planes several years earlier). Frenchman Félix du Temple’s Monoplane is credited with lifting off of a ski jump run under its own power in 1874, after which it glided for a short time before returning to the ground.
The breakthrough moment our species had been waiting for took place on December 17, 1903. On a humble airstrip near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright flew the Wright Flyer—which was powered by an internal combustion engine—for twelve seconds over a span of 37 metres (120 feet). Various museums and aeronautical associations around the world consider it the first heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled and sustained flight with a pilot aboard. Later that day, Orville’s brother, Wilbur, flew the Wright Flyer 260 metres (850 feet) in fifty-nine seconds.
Yet the Wright brothers didn’t happen upon their discovery serendipitously. These were dedicated, methodical scientists who took their responsibilities seriously, having designed, built, and tested a series of kite and glider designs earlier in the century before turning their attentions to powered aircraft. They even built a wind tunnel to test their various designs, a step that advanced the science of aeronautical engineering tremendously.
Yet not everyone accepts that the Wrights were the pioneers of modern aviation. On September 13, 1906, in Paris, France, a Brazilian inventor named Alberto Santos-Dumont made a public flight in an airplane he called the 14-bis. Though few people question that the Wrights were first in the air, debate continues about which craft—the Wright Flyer or the 14-bis—had the more practical design, and therefore the first “true” airplane. More recently, evidence has been uncovered that suggests an American named A.M. Herring may have made the first powered flight, in Michigan in 1898 or 1899. Dozens of other inventors also claimed to have taken short flights between 1900 and 1910.
Regardless of who actually made the first documented flight, the aviation world changed forever after the turn of the twentieth century. Planes were almost immediately incorporated into military service. Italy sent planes on bombing missions during the Italian-Turkish war in 1911–12. Bulgaria followed, using its planes to attack Ottoman positions during the First Balkan War (1912–13). World War I saw both sides of the conflict use planes extensively, both for bombing and reconnaissance.
On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright laid at the controls of the first powered, sustained flight while his brother Wilbur ran alongside him to balance the machine.
With the end of World War I, the planet was poised for another step in the evolutionary chain of manned flight. Enter the Golden Age of aviation, a twenty-year period between 1918 and 1939 that saw a host of rapid advancements in aircraft technology. Gone were underpowered biplanes made of wood and fabric, replaced by high-powered, single-wing aircraft made primarily of aluminum.
War has a way of spurring technological advances, and the aircraft industry was no different. World War II caused a huge surge in the development and production of airplanes, with virtually every country involved in the conflict dedicating a significant portion of its resources to developing and building flight-based weapon-delivery systems. The first functional jet plane was flown in World War II (the Heinkel He 178), followed shortly by the world’s first fighter jet (the Messerschmitt Me 262), and the world’s first jet-powered bomber (the Arado Ar 234). Yet if there’s one plane that made its presence felt in the second great conflict, it was a twin-engine piston-pounder whose speed and range changed the airline industry forever. And it was looming right in front of me: the Douglas DC-3.
Nobody in the Buffalo Airways hangar seemed bothered by my presence, so I took the opportunity to wander over to the great metallic beast. Like most modern-day travellers, I have fairly extensive experience with aircraft, but exclusively from an end-user’s standpoint. Usher me down the Jetway and I’m quite comfortable finding my seat inside the plastic-and-metal tube that will hurtle me to my destination at a cruising altitude of thirty-five thousand feet. I know how to fold my jacket neatly and stow it in the overhead baggage compartment and can even eat an inflight meal (should I be lucky enough to be served an inflight meal) without dribbling half of it on my jeans. And if push came to shove, I could probably even place an oxygen mask on my face without accidentally hanging myself on the rubber tube. But this was different.
Built in 1942, C-gwzs is one of the Douglas DC-3s that Buffalo Airways uses to fly the scheduled passenger service between Hay River and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The plane was the 12,327th DC-3 off the assembly line in California.
Seeing a plane, especially a craft as legendary as the one before me, from this vantage point is a unique experience. Up close and personal, the Douglas DC-3 may well be the most beautiful and enigmatic piece of machinery I’ve ever seen. Its gleaming aluminum alloy fuselage stretched gracefully toward the front of the hangar, curving gently outward to its widest point, after which it gradually narrowed again as it neared the cockpit. The horizontal stabilizer
s jutted out abruptly from the back of the craft, filling the foreground. I could make out the dramatic sweep of the main wings off in the distance, the hint of a propeller peeking over the top of each one on this twin-engine beauty.
Yet the plane was not about to reveal all her secrets to me from a distance. I got closer, walking her length and running my hands along her smooth yet dimpled surface, 500,000 rivets bouncing under my fingertips. This plane—like each plane in the Buffalo fleet—is no museum piece, no matter how old it may be. No, this is a working plane, a hardscrabble, down and dirty, bare-bones machine that is the backbone of Buffalo’s business.
The “3,” as she is affectionately known, shared the same smell that permeated the hangar, though the primary bouquet was that of grease and oil. As I walked toward the front, the plane began to rise overhead and I could actually fit my six-foot-four frame under the fuselage. No museum piece, indeed! A fine layer of shiny black oil coated the underbelly of the craft. Sheet-metal patches large and small interrupted the otherwise predictable pattern of her frame. Each is a testimony to the rich history of this venerable old bird, whether it be hiding a bullethole from World War II or a dent caused by an impromptu meeting with a spruce tree limb on some long-forgotten northern airstrip.
The Douglas DC-3 is credited with revolutionizing the world of air transportation in the 1930s and 1940s and to this day is considered one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made. The plane was born of a rivalry between two of the most powerful airlines on earth in the 1930s: United Airlines and TWA.
As the Great Depression was tightening its grip on the American economy, both United and TWA were looking to beef up their fleets with Boeing’s new flagship 247 aircraft. United managed to lock down an order of five dozen 247s, leaving TWA high and dry until the entire order had been filled, a process that could take years. Not willing to give in quite so easily, TWA turned to pioneering aircraft designer Donald Douglas, founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company, to design and build a plane that would compete with the 247. Douglas’s resulting design was 1933’s twelve-passenger DC-1, of which only one prototype was built.
TWA asked for a few modifications to the DC-1 (primarily increasing its seating capacity and adding more powerful engines), which led to 1934’s more robust DC-2, a fourteen-seat, twin-engine airliner; TWA ordered twenty of the new planes. The DC-2 was so popular that a host of European airlines placed orders as well. They all wanted a piece of the plane that proved modern passenger air travel could be safe, comfortable, and reliable. And while the DC-2 was a fine machine, it still had room to improve. Enter American Airlines CFO Cyrus Smith.
Smith was looking for a “sleeper” plane—one in which passengers could stretch out and sleep on long-distance journeys—to replace American’s aging fleet of Curtiss Condor II biplanes, so he convinced Douglas to modify the DC-2, using a pre-order of twenty planes as bait. The new plane was engineered over the next two years, and on December 17, 1935—the thirty-second anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk—the prototype fourteen-berth DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) took to the air, followed soon after by its sister dayship, the twenty-one-seat DC-3. American Airlines introduced DC-3 passenger service on June 26, 1936.
With the advent of the DC-3, air travel changed forever. The plane needed to refuel only three times during transcontinental trips, meaning people could fly from one side of North America to the other in as little as fifteen hours. The plane boasted amenities previously unheard of in air travel; passengers enjoyed such luxuries as on-board bathrooms and hot meals. For the first time, passengers could stand up and walk around the plane while airborne.
Thanks to a comfort and convenience previously unknown in passenger air travel, more people took to the skies than ever, and rail travel faced serious competition for the first time. Some airlines realized they could make more money from passenger travel than from shipping mail and other cargo, so it didn’t take long before American Airlines’ competitors jumped on the bandwagon: over four hundred DC-3 orders were placed almost immediately.
War changed the landscape once again, and the DC-3 was the world’s plane of choice to move troops and cargo. During World War II, some ten thousand U.S. military versions of the DC-3 were built, though under different names: the C-47 Skytrain, the C-53 Skytrooper, the R4D Skytrain, and the Dakota. These planes boasted reinforced metal floors, larger access doors, and a towing cleat for pulling gliders. The plane could carry twenty-eight fully equipped paratroopers or as much as six thousand pounds of cargo, which might include a jeep and trailer, or even an anti-tank gun. Yet the Americans were not alone in their love of the DC-3. The armed forces of many countries involved in the war also used the DC-3 to move troops and cargo.
In one famous incident in China, a DC-3 earned the nickname “Whistling Willie, the Flying Sieve” after it was riddled with bullets from Japanese machine-gun strafers. After Chinese labourers patched more than a thousand holes with pieces of canvas, the “3” was deemed airworthy enough to carry sixty-one refugees—far more than its intended payload—to India. The plane encountered a tropical storm en route, ripping the canvas patches to shreds. With nothing to cover its myriad holes, the plane whistled through the air like a screaming banshee for two hours through hostile skies. When it finally landed, an Army major approached the weary pilot and growled: “Why did you bother to radio ahead? We could hear you fifty miles away!”
Production of the DC-3 came to a halt in 1942, but that didn’t prevent commercial airlines from adding the planes to their fleets in the years to come. When the war ended in 1945, militaries around the world—particularly the U.S. military—found themselves sitting on more DC-3s than they could ever hope to use. The solution was to convert them back for civilian use and sell them to commercial airlines. This almost unending supply of cheap and easily maintained airplanes helped usher in the postwar air transport industry. In total, 16,079 DC-3s had been built, the majority in California.
Of the thousands of DC-3s built more than seventy years ago, approximately four hundred are believed to be still flying, primarily as cargo aircraft, though they are also used in aerial spraying, military transport, sightseeing and skydiving, and as passenger airlines. The fact that it is still in daily use makes the “3” unique among prewar aircraft. Perhaps even more telling is the fact that the plane is used in some of the harshest working conditions on the planet. It has an uncanny ability to land on improvised runways of grass, dirt, and ice (its landing gear can be outfitted with skis), making it popular in remote locations and developing countries, where runways are not always paved. From deserts to jungles to the High Arctic, the DC-3 has been there—and is still there.
Buffalo Joe is among those who stand on the front lines of DC-3 dedication, never wavering from his firm belief that when it comes to reliability and efficiency, little else compares to this aging warbird. The company currently owns thirteen of the aircraft—six of which it keeps running at any one time—spread among its various hangars in Yellowknife, Hay River, and Penhold (Red Deer), Alberta. The DC-3 comprises the largest percentage (27 percent) of Buffalo’s current fleet.
Joe will tell you it’s one of the most reliable and trouble-free airplanes ever built. That’s no surprise, really. One of the most important features of the “3”—a design specification ordered by none other than pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh, who was a TWA director at the time—is that the plane should always be able to fly on one engine.
Perhaps that’s why pilots and mechanics alike are so dedicated to this creaky old bird, a pilot’s aircraft if ever there was one. There’s a common saying among those who know the plane best: “The only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3.” Buffalo Joe sees it much the same way, though he adds his unique flair when describing the merits of the plane: “If you really want to experience flight in this life, you have to strap a DC-3 to your ass,” he says.
He’s right. Though I’ll likely never know what it feels like to fly a DC-3, in the months to come I would have ample opportunity to sit in the cockpit of that great groaning beast as she made her way across northern skies. And like Joe says, there is nothing—nothing—that compares to soaring above the world’s last great wilderness in a plane that once flew clandestine missions during World War II.
Having a DC-3 strapped to his ass is where Joe is in his element. The metamorphosis that occurs in his personality at every Sunday–Friday afternoon is remarkable. Here is a man who carries the weight of running an airline on his shoulders for most of his waking hours. He worries about the safety of his aircraft and the people he calls upon to fly them. He worries about the employees who depend upon Buffalo Airways to pay their mortgages and put food on their tables. He worries about remote northern communities that would be stuck without essential food, products, and services if his planes missed their deliveries. But at his core, Joe McBryan is a pilot, and he is never more comfortable than when he sits down early every morning and late every afternoon (except Saturday) in the cockpit of C-GPNR, C-GWIR, or C-GWZS, the three DC-3s that ply the skies between Yellowknife on the north-central coast of Great Slave Lake and Hay River on its southwestern shore. “It’s like night and day,” Mikey says, “a complete change of personality. He’ll yell and scream all day, and once he gets that over with and gets on that plane, he’s happy.”
It doesn’t take long for even the newest arrival to the Buffalo family to see it. By day, Joe is a hardened businessman, one with exceptionally high demands for the people around him, no matter what position they hold in the business’s hierarchy. He rarely cracks a smile, and he prowls around the hangar and adjoining offices like a lion on the hunt. If there’s something going on in the business, Joe knows about it, is likely worried about it, and will probably find something about it that needs to be improved. Walk across the tarmac of the Yellowknife or Hay River airports to the stairs of the DC-3, however, and there’s a different person waiting for you. Sure, he looks like the Joe McBryan you’ve been scared to bump into in the hangar, but this Joe McBryan is busy greeting passengers as they board the plane. He chats with old friends, welcomes them aboard, laughs and smiles as they offer their stories of the day. He is, in a word, charming.
The Ice Pilots Page 3
