[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 11] [Senate] [Pages 15310-15311] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]NOEL WIEN--ALASKA AVIATION PIONEER Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on July 6, 1924, the first non- stop flight between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska occurred. The flight was made in an old water-cooled Hissopowered Standard J-1 open- cock-pit biplane and was flown by Noel Wien and Bill Yunker. The Wein name is synonymous with Alaska aviation. It is said that Noel Wien's flight between Anchorage and Fairbanks was the start of Wein Air Alaska. I will quote for the Record an account of the early days as told by Noel Wein. The change has been great both in aviation and the city of Fairbanks since that memorable day, July 6, 1924, when, sitting behind an old water-cooled Hisso powered Standard J-1 open-cockpit biplane, Bill Yunker and I landed here after flying non-stop from Anchorage. We had flown up at night, thus taking advantage of the smoother air. The smoke was very thick for the last 80 miles and kept us guessing all the time. It was even difficult to follow the railroad tracks from Nenana on in. There was intrigue about the stillness of the air and the frontier atmosphere of Fairbanks, which made me like the north from that first day. For two weeks we couldn't find our way cross-country due to the forest fire smoke, but when it cleared up we were busy. People her took to the air quickly. They were of the hardy type, willing to take a gamble. Ben Eielson had made a number of flights that spring, before I arrived. He had also started a company the year before, in the summer of 1923, and had brought in an old reliable OX-5 Curtis Jenny JN-4D open cockpit World War I training plane. Due to the interest created by Eielson's earlier pioneering, we had little trouble getting flying business to the outlying mining camps. Livengood, located 60 miles northwest of here, was one of the best of the gold producing camps. The first season in 1924, we made 34 flights to Livengood, and in the summer of 1925, 43 flights. All went smoothly until mid-summer of 1925. We had purchased a supposedly major overhauled plane from Lincoln, Nebraska, one of the Hisso Standard build-up headquarters. The engine worked fine on the flight over to Livengood, but on the return trip something happened. All of a sudden the water from the cooling system of the engine [[Page 15311]] gave us a shower bath. I knew that because of the loss of water the engine would get so hot it would stop running. We were about half-way back to Fairbanks, near Wickersham Dome. I spotted a shelf to one side of the dome which seemed like the only possible chance to get down without breaking up or going over on our back. We were cruising lower than the 2,500 foot shelf, so we had to use power to get up to it. The old engine was steaming plenty when we got to a landing approach. It turned out to be a fair landing place and we stayed right side up and landed without breaking anything. It turned out that the water pump had broken in flight, which in turn had thrown the water out. The two passengers and myself walked in to Olnes, on the Chatanika River, over the tussuk covered trail. One passenger, an old Sourdough, had no trouble walking out. The other passenger, an insurance adjuster, had flown over on both business and pleasure. This passenger, I would say, was my first tourist, and possibly the first flying tourist passenger in Alaska. He had on oxford shoes and was about to give up before we arrived at the Chatanika River. It is not my intent in these articles to be writing of my experiences, but instead to give some idea of the progress made in aviation and the change of times in the north. Having had to discontinue flying in the fall of 1924 because of the open cockpit of the old Hisso Standard, a decision was made to try to get a cabin plane with an air cooled motor for use in wintertime. Because I was going ``outside'' for the winter to visit my folks in Minnesota, it worked out well for me to make a tour of the states to see what was being built. I found that about all that was being built was a very small number of open cockpit planes with old XO-5 and Hisso motors. One exception was the Huff Deland company which was building planes with an open front seat for two passengers and a pilot seat in the rear. This plane had an early model Wright air cooled engine of about 200 horsepower, but we had decided not to settle for anything but a cabin plane. Both the Wright company and the Curtiss company did their best to locate the type of plane we wanted, but their efforts were unsuccessful. We finally had to settle on a Dutch built Fokker F-111 or F-3, a six-place monoplane which K.L.M. and early German airlines had already been using on some kind of schedule service in Europe. This plane had been built in 1921 and it was already the spring of 1925. There still were no cabin planes being built in the United States. The Atlantic Aircraft Company, a dealer for Fokker, had three ships available. We bought one of them that had been used some, for $9,500. We shipped it all the way to Fairbanks via the Panama Canal. It had a German 6 cylinder engine of 235 horsepower. The cabin was very plush with curtains and all the trimmings. This ship proved conclusively that a cabin airplane was the type to use in Alaska even though we could not use it through the winter of 1925-26 because it had no brakes except for a tail skid which helped to stop it. It had a rather streamlined monoplane wing and took a minimum of 1,000 feet to stop after the three points were firmly on the ground. We had some close shaves on sand bars and fields 1,000 or under, during the summers of 1925-26. Our flying out of Fairbanks was the only cross-country flying in the Territory at that time. There was one other airline at Ketchikan where Roy Jones was doing some flying with an old two-place navy training flying boat. We were successful with the flying of the Fokker F-111 and made the first commercial flight to Nome, carrying 4 passengers and 500 pounds of baggage, a 1,200 pound load. We flew non-stop back here in 6 hours and 55 minutes. That's all for now. Noel.--Originally published in the ``Wien Alaska Arctic Liner'' August 1956. On July 6, 1999, the 75th anniversary of the first non-stop flight, the sons of Noel Wien, Richard and Merrill, will pay homage to their late father's legacy. In commemoration, they will retrace the journey in a refurbished Boeing Stearman biplane, which was built in 1943. This type of plane was used to train pilots in World War II. They will leave from the Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage, which is now a public park, and land at Fairbanks International Airport. The original landing site in Fairbanks, Weeks Field, has since been developed and houses the Noel Wien Public Library. After all his years of flying, Richard gained a whole new respect for his father's flying ability when he and his son, Michael, flew the refurbished biplane from Seattle. They made the trip in early May and encountered winter conditions during the flight. It did not take long to realize that they weren't within the confines of a closed, heated cabin. Both Richard and Merrill continued in their father's footsteps. They are both commercially rated pilots with thousands of flying hours between them. They were both involved with Wien Air Alaska and then when the family sold it, the brothers opened up a helicopter business. Although Richard and Merrill are no longer involved in the commercial side of aviation, it's in the blood. Organizing this event was a labor of love for Richard Wien. He also credits his major sponsor the Alaska Airmen's Association for helping to make it happen in addition to other individuals and organizations. He is embarking on this trip to honor his father and also the 75th anniversary of the first airmail run made by Ben Eielson. My heartiest congratulations to Richard and Merrill Wien for organizing this wonderful tribute to their father and also for keeping the pioneering aviation spirit alive through this commemorative flight. ____________________