AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2011 - 72

The next cargo Bush flying is seldom routine or boring. A pilot never knows, from day to day, what his next flight or cargo will be. This was especially true in the 1950s and early 1960s when I was involved, flying for Folsom’s Air Service in Greenville, Maine. Unlike today, roads in the backcountry were rare. Most everything people consider essential to living in remote areas had to be flown in. The airplane became the taxi and the light truck. And pilots continued to find innovative, ingenious, and sometimes risky ways to use their craft and skills. Federal aviation inspectors might have been aghast had they been around to see how some pilots used their airplanes then. It wasn’t at all unusual to see any manner of material tied or strapped to pontoons, or jammed into cockpits, with seemingly little regard for gross weight limits, or aerodynamic

crates of dynamite in the rear compartment—and the blasting caps in his pants pocket. Flying for Folsom’s was never dull, always busy. On a given day I might fly a load of guests into or out of some remote sporting camp such as Nugent’s Wilderness Camps on Chamberlain Lake, or Rainbow Lake Lodge; or to a place where they would tent out, like Lobster or Allagash lakes (see “Arctic Lodges,” page 60). I might have to fly a truck part to a lumber camp, a mechanic to a river-driving towboat, or a technician to service someone’s gas-powered refrigerator. Often, it was supplies that filled the backseat to be flown in to someone’s remote camp. One of the cargoes I dreaded was flying gasoline. The rear seats would be removed, and the entire compartment filled with as many five-gallon cans of gas as it would hold—making sure that all covers were secure and none leaked.

Backcountry inhabitants By eastern United States standards, Maine is still a relatively wild place. With some 17 million acres—roughly 20,000 square miles—in unorganized, forested wild lands, it’s the largest such chunk of undeveloped land east of the Mississippi. Relatively uninhabited, this large area in some ways is still a small town in that everyone knows personally or by reputation just about everyone else who lives in the backcountry. This is especially true of pilots, who get around and are likely to have more dealings with the backcountry inhabitants—trappers, guides, camp operators, or hermits. When I was working that country there were a number of such recluses who chose to live alone in the backwoods, making a meager living by trapping, guiding, or picking up an odd job with a logging or river driving company. Most, when I knew them, were older men; it was thought many

I might have to fly a truck part to a lumber camp, a mechanic to a river-driving towboat, or a technician to service someone’s gas-powered refrigerator. Often, it was supplies that filled the backseat to be flown into someone’s remote camp.
effects on already “dirty” and low-powered aircraft. But these guys figured they had the experience and know-how to pull it off, and usually did. But not always. One pilot left Greenville with a load of lumber, including sheets of plywood, tied to the struts of his Cessna 180, en route to a cabin-building site. He never made it. The ties holding the front of the lumber load let go. The front of the wood slammed up against the belly of the airplane. This created huge aerodynamic drag. Unable to maintain altitude, the pilot, using consummate skill, managed to bring the airplane down in a “controlled crash” in a bog. He was unhurt. His airplane sustained only slight damage and was recovered by helicopter. Andy Stinson (now 84 years old and still rebuilding and actively flying airplanes after 60 years of flying) is the only other surviving member of Dick Folsom’s operation from the 1950s. He recalls flying many times with unusual cargoes, but the touchiest one involved
AOPA PILOT •

I always took pains to fly the airplane as gently as possible and not jiggle those cans to set off a spark. A gasoline fire in that fabric airplane would incinerate it—and me—in seconds. The gasoline was delivered to remote camps, which needed it to fuel outboard motors, chain saws, generators, and such. There was a story circulated of a pilot (not from Folsom’s but from another company, Holt’s) who was just taking off with a load of gasoline cans when he discovered a fire starting around the nozzle of one of the cans. This he became aware of just as his airplane attained flying speed and lifted from the water. Expecting the whole cargo to erupt any second, the pilot pushed open the door, figuring to jump out and take his chances in the water, rather than in a fire. Just as he opened the door, a blast of air entered the cockpit and snuffed out the flame. The grateful pilot reached back, screwed down that loose cap, and continued on his flight. He obviously was one cool—and miraculously lucky—cat.

were veterans of World War I. All were characters. My old friend Andy Stinson (what a great name for an old-time bush pilot!), during his many years of backcountry flying, got to know most of the characters scattered around the woods. One of Andy’s regular flights was to haul the mail to Chesuncook Village, a tiny community near the north end of Chesuncook (called ’Suncook by the locals) Lake. It could be reached only over 20 miles of water (or ice in winter). Andy was flying an airplane on skis on a cold winter day when he spotted a hermit who lived alone across the lake from the village. (Even that tiny village, with its winter population of fewer than 10 souls, was evidently too crowded for him.) The man, Hiram Johnson, had been out to town to pick up a load of supplies and was headed back to his isolated cabin, on snowshoes, towing his load on a handsled (called a moose sled in local parlance). He had walked several miles, but still had at least 10 more miles to go.

72 • FEBRUARY

2011

AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2011

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