In 1949 I lived in St. Maries, a small logging, farming community located in Benewah County, Idaho, about ninety-five miles south of the Canadian border. The town is situated in the picturesque St. Joe River valley. The shadowy St. Joe river winds slowly through the valley and empties in Lake Coeur d'Alene about ten miles West, after flowing between Lake Chatcolet and Round Lake.
In August of 1949 I completed the course for a flight instructor rating. After passing the required flight-test, I got a job at Aviation Industries in St. Maries because I was available, not for my great skill as a pilot. It was a happy day for me. Skill would come with more flying time. Aviation Industries, a flight training school, opened for business in Coeur d' Alene Idaho shortly before the end of World War Two. Later, they opened branches in Kellogg and St. Maries, Idaho. Bill Gage was in charge of the St. Maries operation and Jim Doyle, Clay Henley and Jim Allen were instructors. The Piper J-3 Cub was used as a primary trainer, however UPF 7 Wacos and Stinsons were available for advanced training.
Although it normally enjoys a mild climate of four seasons, there are years when the weather is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Temperatures of 20° below zero are not uncommon during the cold winters. The winter of 1949-1950 started out to be cold. During the first part of December, very cold air swept down out of Canada and put North Idaho into a deep freeze. The temperature dropped to below zero; all the lakes and rivers froze over. Now if you think the sub freezing weather slowed down the flight instruction activity, you are right. It took awhile to figure out how to get the engines started. Hand propping them was like doing pull-ups on a bar. Various methods for warming them up were tried and finally we were in business again. A lot of the practice area was over the lakes and river, so at least we had more places for forced landings in case of an engine failure.
Three or four days after the big freeze, the weather moderated and temperatures warmed up to just below freezing, the sky clouded over and it started snowing. The transformation from cold and gray to winter wonderland was magnificent. Before long we were blessed with about a foot of snow.
After the snowstorm the installation of skis made it a whole new ball game. Airplanes fly pretty much the same while they are in the air, regardless of what type of landing gear they have, whether it is wheels, floats or skis. It is while they are on the ground or water that things change. Take offs and landings with a plane fitted with skis can be fun or very frustrating depending on the condition of the snow. There are some rules that have to be followed. One rule is that once you start taxiing you can't stop. If you stop for more that ten seconds the skis freeze to the snow and you can't start again unless someone grabs the wings and rocks the plane violently or you put on full power and raise and lower the tail by pulling back and forth with the elevator control. This action might break it lose. So, once you start taxiing, you have to do your cockpit and traffic check while you are moving. When you start the take off, if the snow is very deep or soft you have to kind of "float" the plane into the air. This is accomplished by letting the tail come up only until the tail wheel breaks free, then hold that position until the plane breaks free of the snow. The speed will be just above a stall. Then as the flying speed builds up you can gradually start a climb. If you run out of runway before it breaks free, you have to reduce power, drop back into the snow, turn around and go back and start your take off all over. The trick this time is to attempt to follow the same track made on the first try to reduce the drag of the snow. If you are successful, a take off will be accomplished. It can be a lot of fun or very frustrating. On the other hand landings are just plain fun. You make your final approach, flare out as usual and when you touch down it feels like you are landing on feathers. It is very hard to bounce on a snow-covered field. (When spring came and we went back on wheels, we had to teach all the students who had soloed on skis how to land without bouncing.)
Chris said, "Look there is something moving on the lake. It looks like a dog".
I looked down and sure enough I could see an animal that looked like a dog running through the snow on Lake Chatcolet. I replied, "Ya, I see it. I'll takeover and we'll go down and have a closer look".
Chris was one of my students. After several flights off the field, the snow became packed so we could make take offs and landings without difficulty. Training continued as usual. We were returning to the field when we saw what looked like a dog. I made a circling let down and leveled out at about 30 feet just behind him. Except it was not a dog, it was a coyote and he was making great leaps trying to stay ahead of us. Just before we over flew him he made a leap to the left and away from our flight path. I started a shallow climbing turn to the left to keep him in sight temporarily and said, "you got it" to Chris. He took over and headed for the field. On the way back I wondered what a coyote was doing out on the lake. There wasn't any food out there or any place to drink. Maybe he just wanted to romp in the snow.
Chris, an avid North Idaho hunter, was really excited about seeing the coyote on the lake. He exclaimed as we walked over to the office, "I wonder if we could shoot a coyote from a plane"? My reaction was not positive. I was thinking about how pretty the coyote looked. Shooting one was a thought that never entered my mind.
Later however, after several students reported seeing coyotes, we decided to give Chris a chance at shooting one of them. Actually, I was more worried about the plane being damaged than the coyotes being hurt. Since he was one of my students, I was given the assignment to fly the plane while he tried to do the shooting.
The actual attempt was on about December 19. Before we took off I warned Chris to be very careful about where he aimed if he happened to get a chance to fire. I was worried about him hitting the prop or one of the lift struts. When we arrived over the lake, it didn't take long to tell if there were any animals present. We were in luck, I guess. There were two coyotes, so Chris opened the door and got in position to shoot. The J-3 Cub's split entry door is hinged horizontally with the top half folding up against the bottom of the wing and the lower half dropping down against the fuselage. The plane can be flown with the door open, with very little additional drag.
I made an approach and leveled out at low altitude behind and a little to the left of one of them. The coyote was right there in perfect position for a shot, I was saying to myself, "shoot, shoot, shoot," but just then he made a 90° leap to the right and was away in a flash. I pulled up slightly and made a 270 turn to get back behind him. He was still running off to our right. I dropped down for another run and got into position for another try. The same thing happened, just as we were close enough to shoot, he leaped out of the way. After two more attempts we finally gave up. The coyote was smarter than the hunters, but I'll bet he sure was tired. I got some good practice doing low altitude turns and Chris got cold from getting the blast from the open door. We flew back to the field and took the razing that was sure to come. Actually, I was kind of happy the way it turned out. We didn't shot anything and we had a good flight. There was no more talk about hunting from an airplane after that.
New Years Eve flight
My friend Bob asked, "What time is it?
I answered, "I don't know, it's too dark to see my watch."
"Well use your flashlight."
"Oh, OK," I looked and told him," It's 11:45 PM"
After the coyote fiasco, flying again got back to normal. We had a few more snowfalls, but not enough to hinder the activity. Christmas came and went. As we approached the New Year, my friend Bob Conway and I discussed what should we do to celebrate bringing in the New Year. This was not just for a new year but also a new decade and we thought we should do something more exciting than having a few drinks at the local club. Actually there wasn't much you could do in St. Maries. About the only activity was going to the club or the movie or cruising around town or building model airplanes, but we liked to fly. We talked about it for a while and finally decided that it would be interesting to fly out the old year and fly in the new.
Bob and I became friends during the summer of 1938. His parents operated the Elite Hotel in St. Maries. I was flying my rubber band powered model of the Stinson Gullwing SR6 in a vacant lot not far from the hotel. The plane had made a bad landing and one leg of the landing gear broke. I was inspecting the damage when he came by and invited me to come over to his room in the hotel where he had glue and materiel to repair the damage. When we entered his room I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. There were several large models hanging from the ceiling and another sitting on his workbench. These models were powered with real miniature gasoline engines and had wingspans of about six feet. We repaired my model in a few minutes and it has long since passed into oblivion, but this was the beginning of a friendship that has now lasted almost seventy years.
It took a little planning to accomplish what we had in mind. The airport did not have a lighted runway and the planes did not have any electrical equipment, but we didn't let a couple things like that slow us down. A couple flashlights would be all that would be needed to look at the instrument panel to check altitude, speed and etc. After a couple hours drinking coffee at the City Club we came to the conclusion that we would have to dress warmly and take some extra flashlight batteries.
December 31, 1949 dawned clear and cold. It started out to be a typical winter day. About noon a few clouds started moving in and it looked like it might start snowing. Bob and I went to the airport and set out six kerosene windproof lanterns at strategic spots along the runway, two on each end and two about halfway. We figured it would be better to place them during the daylight when we could see the runway.
The day stayed partly cloudy, but the anticipated snow did not arrive; however the temperature started dropping. We didn't actually check the temperature, but common knowledge told us that it must be close to zero. About 10:00PM we went back to the airport and lighted the lanterns, checked the plane, N98280, to make sure it was ready to fly. By 11.00 PM we were ready to take off for the midnight flight. We were both dressed as warmly as possible, Bob had put on three pairs of wool socks and his shoes wouldn't fit over them so he used a pair of galoshes instead. He climbed into the front seat and I handled swinging the prop. After I got into the rear seat, he let it warm up for a few minutes and started to try to taxi out for a take off, however the plane would not move. We had forgot to shake it loose from the snow pack. He decided to go ahead and make the cockpit check, then by applying full power and bouncing the tail on the ground, the skis broke loose and we were on our way. We were not very worried about any local traffic. It was kind of amazing how bright the lanterns showed up as we got lined up on the runway and took off. I hoped they would shine as bright when we landed.
A full moon lit the landscape with a soft silvery hue when it was showing between the clouds. All in all it was a very beautiful evening. Bob started a gentle turn to the right as he put the plane into a gradual climb and finally leveled off at about a thousand feet above the ground. This would be enough altitude to clear the hills around the valley. The city lights looked very bright as we started west toward the town of Plummer about nineteen miles away. After a few minutes we turned north and started a tour of the practice area. It was interesting how many of the farm houses were lit up. Evidently there were many families staying up to welcome in the New Year. When Bob asked me for the time at 11:45 we decided to start going back to town so as to be there by midnight. Then we started circling over town and telling each other "happy new year". What we didn't know was while we were having our celebration there were about a dozen or so happy hunters on the ground firing there rifles into the air to express their views of the new year. (The next day after we were told, we checked the plane for bullet holes, but didn't find any.)
We continued circling for a few minutes when Bob turned the flight over to me to complete the 1950 portion of the flight, to return to the field and make a successful landing. Since we were now flying at pattern altitude, I flew a rough pattern until we were on final approach for a landing to the East. The six lanterns were winking brightly and, as always as on night landings, they seemed to be going uphill. As I continued down the final approach the apparent hill became less and less until at the threshold of the runway the lights appeared level and I flared out for a three-point landing.
It took us about an hour to secure the plane and walk down the runway to bring the lanterns back to the hanger. On the way home we decided the flight had been fun and we had accomplished our goal.