Arctic Bush Pilot

Backed by Wien Airlines, former Navy combat pilot "Andy" Anderson pioneered post-World War II bush service to Alaska's vast Koyokuk River region serving miners, Natives, sportsmen, geologists, adventurers, and assorted bush rats. He flew mining equipment, gold, live wolves and sled dogs, you name it -- anything needed for life in the bush. He sweated out dozens of dangerous medical-emergency flights, "always at night and in terrible storms." Illustrated with 50 historical photos and co-authored by one of Alaska's most popular writers, ARCTIC BUSH PILOT is an exciting and sometimes nostalgic account of a pioneer pilot and his special place in Alaska aviation history.

The true life story of Canadian Arctic bush pilot Don C. Braun is must reading for aviation fans everywhere. His fireside narrative plus 32 pages of photos capture the spirit and adventures of the first man to land a wheeled aircraft at the North Pole. Born on a farm near St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1913, Don built and flew a glider as a teenager and then operated an aircraft repair shop at Harlem Airport in Chicago in the 1930's. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941 and flew the North West Staging Route from Edmonton to Alaska. His first bush flying was in an RCAF Norseman during the war years, and he went on to become one of the best known and most respected Canadian Arctic bush pilots of his time. He joined with Max Ward in getting Wardair off the ground as a small charter operation out of Yellowknife in the 1950's. While Max grew Wardair into one of the world's premier charter airlines, Don preferred the cockpit and the North. His stories of close calls and life in the North always spoke his mind, and this handsome book does no less. The Artic Fox, as he was known in the North, was superbly resourceful, bailing himself out of tight situations almost daily in his days of High Arctic flying. A great pilot and an even better mechanic, Don shares details aviation fans will know and love. This is your book, pilots and all others who love flying.

Fictional children's story about an Arctic bush pilot flying in Alaska and the Yukon Territory. Includes map and photographs, based on factual information.

They were nicknamed Snow Eagle, Flying Knight, Bush Angel, Punch, Doc and Wop. They worked in open cockpits and flew through cold, snow and fog without the benefit of radios, maps or weather reports. They flew over the Barrens, frozen lakes, boreal forests and mountain ranges by dead reckoning and line of sight. They landed on makeshift runways, glaciers, muskeg, tundra and glassy lakes. Comrades of the wilderness, they were Canada's early bush pilots. L.D. Cross brings us the incredible stories of the brave and enterprising pilots who rolled back the boundaries of western and northern Canada, delivering mail, medicine, miners and all the supplies needed by frontier settlements. Flying such planes as Curtiss, Bellanca, de Havilland, Fairchild, Junkers, Norseman, Stinson and Vickers, they were the off-roaders of aviation, venturing where no others dared to go. Climb into the cockpit with these pioneering pilots for an exciting trip into Canadian aviation history.

Color-illustrated, Bush Pilot Way, focuses on flying small taildragger aircraft and landing them in remote and challenging terrain in wild Alaska. It presents the author's explanation of his aviation journey in Alaska. The journey displays the inspiration of flying in Alaska, defining who are Alaska's modern-day bush pilots, and showing the training necessary to become the best pilot you can be. It also presents the causes for the elevated aircraft accident rate in Alaska and how to avoid such incidences. Bush Pilot Way serves as a primer for training the Alaska bush pilot way. Once a pilot learns how to train according to the book, additional or new training can be carried out, without difficulty, because the pilot has already learned the foundation for training. Bush Pilot Way is a classical training manual because it is written in a contemporary style that is always current. As time goes forward, the strategy for training will remain the same. Fifty-two distinctive narratives comprising the appendix, show general aviation topics and authenticated experiences of a skilled pilot flying Alaska's uninhabited backcountry. The narratives include the inspiration of flying Alaska's coastal mountains, glaciers, and fjords; flying and landing in Alaska's backcountry in winter on skis and in summer on Bushwheels; flying wildlife surveys and observing rare wildlife encounters.

Backed by Wien Airlines, former Navy combat pilot "Andy" Anderson pioneered post-World War II bush service to Alaska's vast Koyokuk River region serving miners, Natives, sportsmen, geologists, adventurers, and assorted bush rats. He flew mining equipment, gold, live wolves and sled dogs, you name it--anything needed for life in the bush. He sweated out dozens of dangerous medical-emergency flights, "always at night and in terrible storms."Illustrated with 50 historical photos and co-authored by one of Alaska's most popular writers, ARCTIC BUSH PILOT is an exciting and sometimes nostalgic account of a pioneer pilot and his special place in Alaska aviation history.

Recalling some of the most memorable escapades ever conducted in the Canadian Arctic with bush planes, Flying to Extremes takes place in the late ?60s and early ?70s from a base at Yellowknife, in the heart of the Northwest Territories. Beyond recounting so many near-mishaps, this book is also about colourful people: the trappers, prospectors, miners, adventurers and gold-ingot thieves who constituted the fauna at the main bar in Yellowknife in those days. For Arctic dreamers, there was always the flight to the Nahanni River, with its Deadman's Valley, hot springs, tales of lost or dead prospectors, the many airplanes crashed in pursuit of gold, and much more Nahanni lore. This entertaining book recollects Prinet's adventures as a young man while capturing the humour, beauty, danger and unique culture of northern communities, in the dramatic landscape of the Canadian Arctic. Readers familiar with the region and those who can only dream of visiting it will both find this title a nostalgic and captivating read.