The following is a recollection of the evolution of the Aircraft Division
during the time of Jerry Lawhorn’s employment (June 1954 – May 1974)
with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska
I went to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service, Aircraft Division, back in the mid
50’s. We had the awfullest collection of airplanes that you can imagine. I don’t
know where we ever got some of them – the Cessna Airmaster – that was built way
back in ‘0ught-whatever’ and we had a couple of Boeing YL-15’s that hadn’t been
smashed yet and a couple of Stinson L-1’s (those were military surplus, the last
two) and we had a Gull Wing Stinson, “V-77” is the civilian designation for it. We
had some Piper Pacers and some Super Cubs. They were pretty early vintage – the
Pacers were l25 horsepower, and so were the Super Cubs. They were reasonable
for their day. By present day standards, they were a little bit underpowered but
they were the main stay at that time – before Statehood when things were kinda
rough and tumbly yet.
Early on we began to get some more surplus stuff. The Grumman Widgeons
– we ended up with four of those. They are the little brother to the
Grumman Goose that you normally see around here. When we got four of
them and ended up with a few dollars extra, we got three of those things
‘supered.’ That means we took off the old Ranger engines and had some
new late vintage 6-cyclinder Lycoming engines put on. The 260 horsepower
versus the 200 horsepower on the Ranger engines were more reliable and
made a pretty darn sprightly thing out of the Widgeon. It would just hum
right down the Inlet.
The next airplanes that we got lots of were the Grumman Goose’s, G-21A.
That’s the big brother to the Widgeon. It had the pair of big round motors
on it. The Navy and the Coast Guard were getting out of the Grumman
Goose business so we got a whole slough of those dudes. We ended up with
about 12 or 13 of them at one time – surplus – and they didn’t cost us
anything but the gas and oil to get them up here.
After getting rid of those Grumman’s, the military decided ‘well we got a
whole bunch of those big round motors all overhauled in big steel cans, all
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preserved, and we’ll get rid of those too, so in the process of acquiring
government surplus, we rounded up 33 engines – big round motors for free,
just the freight to get them up here and all the Goose parts that the Navy was
getting rid of, we obtained a train carload of those too. So, other than
gasoline, that made an awful inexpensive airplane for us. We had enough of
them to where we could really do a good job. They were good suppliers for
base camps, with grub, tents, outboard motors and all the rest of the stuff it
takes for a base camp. The Goose worked out real well. It was good in
rivers and it was good in small lakes too. Of course, this was all before
Statehood.
We had a Twin Beech, Beech 18; this was the Director’s airplane – Clarence
Rhode. It was his kinda private thing. I forget if we got it from the border
patrol or someone had confiscated it – you know how that goes. Anyway,
we ended up with it and we put long range tanks in it so the Director could
whiz around and check the various stations. We had a whole pot full of
people out in the bushes and various stations with game management agents
and they were strung from McGrath to Dillingham to Tok to Fairbanks to
Kodiak and naturally Juneau and so it made quite a plane for the Director to
run around in and visit all these folks and see what their problems were.
We also had a Piper J-5. It was a confiscated airplane. Sometimes violators
would donate nice airplanes, courtesy of the judge. We would get some nice
airplanes but some of them were in pretty grim shape and we would have to
overhaul them before they were worth much. We got permission to go
through military surplus down in Litch Field Air Base, Arizona – next to
Phoenix, the Navy base there. They had a bunch of DC-3’s that they were
going to surplus. We picked up a DC-3! The Regional Director allowed as
how that was all right because we could use it for transferring all the various
FWS people to other locations along with all their household goods. We’d
have plenty of room and wouldn’t cost the Fish and Wildlife nearly as many
dollars if we could do all this ourselves so we used the DC-3 for that.
Then we got involved in sea mammal surveys – walrus and offshore stuff
and so we, like we always did, modified the DC-3 and put big bay windows
up in front and four seats up in the wheel house, so to speak, so the folks
could do their survey work up front and not be disturbed by the wings
interfering with their counts. We put a pair of 200 gallon dropable gas tanks
on the outside of the airplane under the wings so we had gas range we hadn’t
even used yet. Being a real lightweight airplane because there wasn’t
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anything in it but four people, emergency gear and lots and lots and lots of
gasoline, we did a lot of offshore surveys with it. We didn’t have the DC-3
too long before the Bureau of Land Management decided they needed it for
fire fighting.
We had a lot of Beavers accessible to us – surplus - down in Davis Monthan
Air Force Base out of Tucson, Arizona. We picked up four of those Beavers
for all the flyways in the States plus five of them for us up here in Alaska.
They were surplus so the price was right. We could use those big round
motors that we got for the Goose’s and we would have a lot of surplus parts
available for them so there was another real cheap airplane that we could
have. The price of the motor overhauls of the Super Widgeons that we had
modified were killing us. They wanted some thick dollars to overhaul those
engines. We could run a Goose a lot cheaper so we decided to sell the
Widgeons and buy some Cessna 180’s.
The Super Cub, with all its capabilities, was a little short for a winter
airplane. With all the winter gear that you had to have – wing covers, engine
covers, and emergency gear and all that sort of stuff, in a two-place airplane,
it became a one-place airplane. Two people could ride in it and if they did,
they hoped they didn’t go down somewhere because they wouldn’t have all
the gear they needed to subsist for a few days until the weather changed or
until somebody came after them.
The operators started getting Cessna 180’s. They were pretty good rigs;
made a good two-place winter airplane, all metal, lots of horsepower, 225
horsepower and they went on skis quite readily and on floats too so that
sounded like a pretty good airplane. Our aim was to gradually phase out
the Piper Pacers and switch to Cessna 180’s and kinda keep up with
everybody.
We purchased a pair of Bellanca’s - high wing – 2-place, fabric covered
planes. We didn’t write our contract tight enough and those folks wanted to
get into the act. We really didn’t want them because we had a lot of Super
Cub parts and this would be another “misfit.” Anyway we got stuck with
two of them but the price was o.k. Of course it wasn’t too long before they
went the way of all good airplanes – they got smashed and we didn’t replace
them.
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We decided we would modify a Grumman Goose to fit our needs and that’s
what we did. It was a long process and we stepped on a lot of toes, both in
engine designs and in Washington and in Grumman, but we did end up with
a very capable airplane, long range, offshore patrol and survey. It served our
needs from day one. It turned out to be a great piece of equipment. It was
very reliable; all systems were redundant. In the thought process, we were
going to convert two more Gooses to this Super Goose condition and all nine
Beavers to the same engine, Nacelle combinations, so that one spare engine,
propeller, Nacelle, would outfit this whole fleet of airplanes. That’s the
equivalent to 15 engines. All we would need was one spare. The only
difference between a Beaver and the Goose is which panel you put the
exhaust out of to make it a left or right engine. We would save the taxpayers
a lot of dollars and we would upgrade all our airplanes to the latest thing and
be safer but that wasn’t to be. Once the Office of Aircraft Services came
along, that planning went down the tube.
My project was to convert a standard Beaver to turbine power, using the
same Nacelle and engine, as we had on the Goose, to a special configuration
for flyway biologists. Those folks have to drive along 120 miles an hour,
150 feet above ground, forever and ever and ever; running transects,
counting ducks and geese. I tried to make this a pretty foolproof airplane
because those folks aren’t professional pilots. They go along and they count
ducks and they don’t pay much attention to what’s happening in the airplane
as long as there isn’t a bell or whistle or a light coming on. They just drive
along and do their job and that was the name of the game. We designed the
fuel system such that it was almost foolproof. Even the FAA was astounded
when they got into looking at that and how simple it was and how it worked
so nicely.
These aircraft were all before the Office of Aircraft Services was
established. For more information on the turbine Beaver N-754, please
contact Bev Grafel at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of
External Affairs. She has a complete history of the evolution of N-754 and
copies are available if anyone is interested.
Transcribed from tape by:
Mary E. Smith
4120 Dorothy Drive
Anchorage, AK 99504
333-0092
