Heroes of the Horizon: Flying Adventures of Alaska

A great collection of flying stories collected to span a period of aviation history in the far north. I enjoyed the book, and thought that the author did a good job of picking the stories to reflect not only humor, but some of the dangerous aspects of aviation. A very good collection and highly reccomended. Another good read of a seldom mentioned segment of Northern aviation is Flying North South East and West: Arctic to the Sahara

This book is a collection of stories from veteran bush pilots who flew in Alaska from the 1930's through into the 1950's - both the early days and the "coming of age" of bush flying. Rather than trying to present a history of bush flying, the author as dedicated a chapter each to a number of different pilots and told their stories based on interviews with the pilots themselves and with people who knew them. The book's full of life and death adventure as well as what the routines of flying were like back then - which would give most pilots today a heart attack. There's sure some interesting stories in the book - Mary Worthlake - the first licensed woman pilot in Alaska, Sig Wein (Noel Wein's brother), Bud Helmericks (who incidentally wrote a few books of his own, one of which, on the early days of bush flying in Alaska, is about to be republished apparantly). The author's self-stated goal was not to write biographies, but to create a series of portraits that would depict the early bush pilots in their own words. He only writes of pilots he could interview in person and he manages to cover about thirty of them. When he interview them, many were retired, some were octogenerians, a number that he would have liked to include had passed away. What the author wanted to do was tell their stories that up until this book, had usually only been told to friends and relatives and/or published as short accounts in a few local or regional papers and magazines. He certainly succeeded in his self-appointed task. It's a great account which stirred my interest in the subject beyond a "that'd be interesting to know a bit more about" to "I really have to read a bit more on this subject." The book's got a reasonable selection of b & w photo's included as well - all in all, well worth reading. The author was a commercial floatplane pilot himself who knew some of the pilots whose stories he tells before he started writing the book. The forward to the book is by Noel Merrill Wein, the son of Noel Wein - the founder of Wein Alaska Airlines - which says a little something all by itself. Overall, the book is highly readable, the accounts are well-told, interesting, some of them downright scary if you've ever flown in small planes over rugged country and can picture to yourself what it was like. After I started reading this, I found it hard to put down and now find myself looking out for more books by or about the bush pilots of that time.

I just finished this book and hated to put it down. I will buy a copy for a friend who flew in Alaska from 1951 to 1995 and who now flies in the Pacific Northwest. Many of the planes are somewhat familiar to me. I did not fly except as a passenger on a few flights in Alaska when I was there in the Air Force for 20 months in 1951 and '52. The Authors' descriptions of accidents and near accidents point up the difficulty of the combination of limitations of aircraft, landing options (or lack of), hazardous terrain and uncompromising weather. The surviving bush pilots used the most amazing skills to make a success of flying in such a formidable and hostile environment. Excellent book!