Yarns, Tales & Rants

Good Day: My name is Wayne Rowley, Born 1941 in Southern Saskatchewan. (Easy to draw, hard to spell). Canada.

I was raised on a Prairie Wheat farm. Both my Grand Pa’s Broke Virgin Prairie Sod for their farms. Single Plow. Single horse. Iron man. I am an AME (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer). BEd. (Taught industrial education for 10 years). Marine mechanic. Licensed Refrigeration Tech in BC. “I am a solution person.”

Today I am happily married. Living in Vietnam.

I thought a lot about what to call this. Stories did not seem correct. I have learned that most Stories/Tall Tales and Yarns have started with a bit of truth. I know that many of the stories are true because I was there.

I’m 83, most of the people involved have passed, which means that most of the characters are not alive. I am NOT Politically Correct and I will use offensive words at times. If you are delicate, please move on, I really don’t give a fat rats ass. My definition of Bull Shit. When I know you are lying and you know you are lying, that is Bull Shit.

There will be a lot of early helicopter stories. Probably some growing up. Music. Farming. Travel. Thinking. Rants. At some point I may include philosophy and the rules I try to live by.

I wanted to do this many years ago when I quit helicopters, the first time. I did not have the money to go to a helicopter bar and by rounds with a tape recorder going to keep the stories. UBC. Now many great stories are lost forever. Bummer.

IN THE BEGINNING, WELL NOT QUITE

The beginning of my Aviation career. I graduated High school in 1959. What does a farm boy do. I knew I did not want to be a farmer. I had gone to Calgary to enroll in the SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) auto mechanics course. I talked to my Uncles Boss who suggested I become an Airplane Mechanic. What a fateful decision. So I enrolled to be an Airplane Mechanic. Its funny how a simple conversation can change your life. Now I am forever HOOKED on the DRUG of Helicopter. Thought I had kicked it a couple of times. NO. Finally just accepted it

The head of the Department was Stan Green. Stan was a fairly crusty old bastard that had worked in the bush of Canada’s North. He built stunningly beautiful model steam locomotives. Years later someone recounted his first impression of Stan Green. He was standing on a landing wheel, on final, with a rag in hand cleaning the oil off the windshield so the pilot could see to land.

We were given a list of tools to buy. My favorite Aunt went with me to the Simpson Sears store (craftsman), to keep me in check. One of the items was a 10oz ball peen hammer.

This was not long after WWII so there where lots of surplus engines. Sait had a number of Jacobs Radial’s that had been used in ANSON trainers. 7 Cylinder Radial Shaky Jacobs. Dual ignition. One side a Magneto, the other a distributer with points and condenser so they could get it stated.

In a back room they also had at least 2 MERLIN V12’S THAT I COULD HAVE BOUGHT FOR $50.00 each. Ah! missed opportunities for lack of funds.

Ansons. Growing up in Southern Saskatchewan I remember the yellow training airplanes flying over the farm.

I was told a story from Tony Becker, Okanagan Pilot on the Dew Line, about Ansons. When the DEW line was being constructed, Ansons were used to move construction workers to their job sites. The story was that all the workers would be standing around waiting to load and an AME would come out and rap sharply on the leading edge of each wing. Someone would explain that the wings were made of wood. The AME was waking up the termites so they would know to hold hands because,” we are going flying”. Who said old time AME’s did not have a sense of humor?

We had teams and had to strip down a Jacobs and reassemble. One team got to test run theirs. Not ours.

So one day I am trying to get something apart and Stan Green walks over and say’s, "Get me a hammer”. I proudly hand him my trusty 10oz hammer. “Get me a hammer”. Go to stores and draw out a “Hammer”. Whack, the part was free. Moral of the story. It maybe took me 10 years before I learned enough to use the Big Hammer. I recently gave the 10oz hammer and a number of surplus quality tools to a friend that appreciates and uses them.

Experience and being open to learn is a valuable thing.

BAMBI BUCKET

A couple of weeks ago I saw that SEI industries (Bambi Bucket) had been sold to the company that also owns DART products. Both companies originally started in the lower mainland of BC.

Years ago I lived in a Float house on the middle arm of the Fraser river. Long past helicopters the first time (mid to late 70’s). I was walking past ENNO’s Marina on the East bank of the middle arm and saw them testing a Bambi bucket. Enno had a stiff legged Crane he used for lifting boats out of the river. Being curious I watched for a bit.

The Only bucket I used was a “Grady” Bucket. Developed by an OK Pilot, Jim Grady and a friend of his in the BC interior. A light weight 45gal fuel drum with the top cut out. In the bottom was a cast aluminum trap door that wanted to open when closed and close when open. The latch (24 Volt solenoid) was activated by the pilot to open. Peter Murray (TALON Helicopters) has a picture of Jim in a Hiller 12E in a hover with the bucket slung underneath above the UBC Olympic pool. Try to get permission to do that today. We had simple racks on the sides of the Hiller’s and Bell 47’s. Strap the empty bucket on the side and fly away. The only time I used one was out of Terrace, BC on S55, CF-HNG, two, 45 gal drums welded together. Eddie Phillips up. Worked fine as I recall. Went inside the cabin. I do not think I ever saw anything for an S58.

My friend Al Leighton said he used a “Water Boy” with a 206. Went in the back seat. Probably before Bambi appeared.

For a few Years I worked as a fabricator/what ever needed done, for Fraser Burred Diving. A Commercial diving company in Richmond BC. A Great job. There will be stories about divers. COMMERCIAL Divers are different! They had a couple of Lifting ballon’s. Looked like a smaller version of a Hot Air ballon. Fabric straps over the ballon that came down to a lift point. Open on the bottom so the diver could fill them with compressed air. A diver (Ed) told me they were lifting a “Cat” out of a lake in northern BC. They had wrapped a steel cable around something and every thing was working as planed when the cable broke. The Ballon shot out of the water a few feet and then went skimming across the lake until it ran out of air. Spooked Ed.

When I first saw one I thought this material and construction is the same as a Bambi Bucket. The story I was told is that the guy that developed the Lift Ballon worked with the guy that developed the Bambi Bucket. At some point they parted ways. I never to my knowledge, meet either of the people involved.

GranDuc Cave-in

On February 18, 1965 the front Portal of the GranDuc copper and gold mine north of Stewart, BC got hit by an avalanche and caved in. It killed a lot of miners and wiped out the camp. 28 people killed.

I was about 24 at the time, working for Okanagan Helicopters, based in Terrace BC. I was an apprentice AME. I think it was later that year that I got my license, VRM 644.

We had two Hiller UH12E’s. CF-OKE and CF-OKI. Dayton Reid was the AME. Eddie Phillips was base manager and chief Pilot. I don’t remember who the other Pilot/Pilots were. Eddie went on to Teach Mountain flying at the Okanagan Mountain training school at I believe Penticton, BC. The school is still there operated by CHI? My God he was good. More about him in another story. We also had a Floater S55. CF-HNG. P&W R1340 Radial. I had worked on this machine on the DEW line in the middle of Baffin Island for 6 months one winter. I don’t remember were she came from but she moved around in the area between Terrace and Smithers. Okanagan had a base in Prince George so that was maybe her official home. A good helicopter. She never gave me any problems. Thank you HNG.

Fortunately there was a back portal to the mine. This was hard Rock mining. The people that managed to survive and get out were in bad shape.

We probably arrived at Stewart in the afternoon with CFHNG. Eddie Phillips UP. The weather in that area would have been marginal at best. Always was. At the end of our flight we were probably dodging big Rocks and things. As Harvey Evans would say.”Cumulus Crapus , with Intermittent Granite”. Stewart is at the head of the Portland Canal, Wikipedia says the average snowfall is 18feet. One of the cloudiest places on earth. I remember that the Town site was mostly derelict. Only a few people still lived there. Old buildings, mostly crushed by the weight of wet snow.

There were never many helicopters in the area at that time. Prince Rupert would have had a couple. Alaska was right there. US coat guard had an S62 and there were maybe a couple of other 3 place machines from Alaska. Later in the afternoon a Canadian Military Vertol appeared and landed. I had never seen so many heads sticking out of a helicopter before. I guess, guiding the pilot. Trans Provincial Airlines (TPA) arrived at the airport in a Fixed wing and a number of news people got out. They spotted my red OK hat and rushed over for an interview. As soon as they realized I new nothing, they move on. What a waste of Air.

The back portal was up a pass/canyon/ you should not be flying in that. The survivors had built a smudge fire so the pilots knew it was time to land. The helicopters would stay as close as they could to the right side going up and their right side coming down. Our S55 was not fast. The S62 was.

Eddie said that when he would meet the S62 it would be flashing lights out of the cloud, a ROAR and then gone.

I know we spent a night in someone's home on chairs. I guess the next day all the survivors had been brought down. I remember the name TAKU, an Alaska ferry. Probably docked in Hyder, Alaska. A couple of miles up the road. I never saw survivors so I suspect they off loaded them onto the TAKU. The pilots on those couple of days must have had trouble walking. Their Balls would have been HUGE.

And then we went home.