Ties To Past Heroes

Recently super pilot Randy Sohn sent me to a web site which described in photos and words a trip Kent Wien took with his father Merrill over some beautiful scenery in the American west. The site was fascinating, the photos beautiful, the aircraft was a DC-3. That’s enough to make any aviator drool, and there’s more… In 1935, when Will Rogers and Wiley Post were killed in an airplane in Point Barrow, Alaska, northernmost point in the U.S.A., there were no satellites to beam news to the rest of the world. The public clamor for news of the crash was nothing short of desperate. There were pictures of the crash but no way to get them to the outside world. Or so it seemed… A bush pilot/businessman named Noel Wien flew the pictures through/over weather, betting his life that when he descended over what he hoped was Seattle, the ceiling would be high enough for him to land. It was. He was well paid for the endeavor, and that’s just the beginning of the story. With the money from the trip, Noel Wien made a large down payment on a newer, bigger airplane which became an important part of the early years of Wien Air Alaska, which became Wien Alaska Airways and operated into the mid 1980s, well into the jet age. Noel had two sons, Richard and Merrill. Merrill had two sons, Kent and Curt, who became American pilots. Wife Gail and I once spent a delightful time in Richard Wien’s hangar in Fairbanks and last week—via the Internet—I met Kent. In what other industry can you meet today the people so closely connected with the so-distant past? (To see the photos of the trip go to www.kentwien.com and then click on "trips".) We'd love to post your comments. Please click the comment tab at the top.