Flying On Instinct Read Online Free

terminal for the whole flying gold rush” he noted. The Fokkers arrived from the American factory, and they were in business.
    The Fokker Universal was the first aircraft built in the US based on the designs of Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker, who had worked for Germany during the First World War. About half of the 44 Universals built between 1926 and 1931 were used in Canada and flown by legendarybush pilots like Walter Gilbert and Punch Dickins. While the Curtiss HS-2L flying boat could only operate in summer, the Fokker had an interchangeable undercarriage and could be outfitted with floats, wheels and skis for virtually all-season operation. Fokker established the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation at the Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to build other aircraft under licence.
    In 1926, Fokker made plans to create a sturdy civilian aircraft designed to land on very rough airstrips, or none at all. One of the features that made this possible without shaking the plane apart was an early shock absorber made of bungee cord. The new plane, the Fokker Super Universal, evolved from the Fokker Universal under design refinements spearheaded by Robert Noorduyn, who would later build his own Noorduyn Norseman bush plane. The mixed-material construction consisted of a welded steel-tube frame for the fuselage, fabric-covered tail surfaces and a plywood wing with a span of 47.74 feet (14.55 metres) mounted above the fuselage. It had a single 149 kW (200 hp) Wright J-4 radial engine and later a 246 kW (330 hp) J-6 engine. Two gasoline tanks were mounted in the wings, and at a maximum speed of 118 MPH (190 Km/h) it had a range of 535 miles (860 kilometres). The pilot sat in an open cockpit forward of the wing’s leading edge. The enclosed cabin below and to the rear of the pilot held four to six passengers or was fitted for cargo estimated up to 940 pounds (427 kilograms).
    In 1927, a Fokker Super Universal sold new from thefactory for $14,200. But on March 31, 1931, the wing of a Trans World Airlines (TWA) Fokker fell off during a flight between Kansas City and Los Angeles. The plane crashed, killing all on board. The American government decreed all future passenger planes must have two engines and be made of metal. William Boeing and Donald Douglas began building such planes, and Anthony Fokker’s company was acquired by North American Aviation in 1933.
    On March 23, 1927, the first major flying project at Western Canada Airways (WCA) got underway when two open-cockpit Fokkers piloted by Bernt Balchen and Fred Stevenson picked up 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of drilling equipment from the end of the rail line at their Cache Lake, Manitoba, base and deposited it at Port Churchill. The Churchill Operation, as the press dubbed it, was the first time large amounts of cargo had been airlifted into the Canadian Arctic.
    On one return trip, Fred Stevenson failed to show up. Seventy-five miles (120 kilometres) north of Cache Lake, his oil line burst and he put down on a frozen lake. With darkness falling, Stevenson snuggled into his flight suit and went to sleep with howling wind and wolves for company. At sunrise, he spotted fresh footprints and followed them to a cabin. The Native occupant was startled by the unexpected company, but he and Stevenson agreed on a price for a dogsled, and Stevenson mushed south. The dogs, however, weren’t up to the trip, so Stevenson released thetired animals and continued on alone through thigh-high snow. Meanwhile, Balchen and his engineer, Al Cheesman, had taken off at first light in search of their missing friend. They spotted the downed plane but not Stevenson. Planes were too expensive to be left sitting on a remote lake, so they decided to land and fly it out. Cheesman, who had some flight experience, got the engine going and took off. When he saw the low oil-pressure gauge, he set the plane back down, fixed the broken line and made it back to Cache Lake with Balchen following in the