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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 1635.PDF
726 FLIGHT, 4 June 1954 GROUND-ATTACK MARKSMANSHIP Light Aircraft Wage War on Wolves in Arctic Alaska By FRANK ILLINGWORTH AMERICAN pilots in Arctic Alaska are engaged on a spectacular operation: hunting wolves in L light aircraft whose only "armament" is a weapon normally used against rabbits—the 12-bore shotgun. The aircraft of what might be called the "Wolf Wing" comprise the Piper Cubs, Cessnas, Bellancas, Stinsons and Aeroncas that at other seasons are engaged in carrying mail and freight to remote settlements. The pilots are all civilian bush-flyers; but the wolf sweeps are planned with the precision of military operations. The caribou and reindeer herds of Alaska are of great economic importance to the Territory, pro viding a local supply of meat to Eskimos, Indians and the growing number of prospectors, miners, surveyors and settlers, and the men of the chain of U.S. military outposts in Alaska. Wild-life authorities estimate that one wolf kills up to 75 reindeer and caribou annually. It followed that the wolf packs must be reduced. Hence the formation of a "Wolf Wing" in 1949. Operating in the Nelchina area of south-west Alaska, it accounted for only 23 wolves in its first year. By 1952 the Wing was using three new 125 h.p. Piper Super Cubs and a Piper J-5C and, operating across almost unexplored polar desola tion from the airstrip at Umiat (barely 150 miles from the most northerly point of Alaska) it accounted for nearly 200 wolves. More were shot from the air last year, and future sweeps may well bring the annual "bag" up to between 300 and 400 animals. The last wolf-sweep based on Umiat started as early as October, fuel, spare parts, food, clothing, sleeping-bags, tents, shotguns and boxes of 12-bore cartridges being flown to the airstrip there from Fair banks, the largest air base in Arctic America. The Americans are drilling for oil in the neighbourhood of Umiat, no doubt with a view to building a refinery for the benefit of U.S. Forces in Arctic Alaska. It is undeniable that an Alaskan parallel to the war-time Canol Project (the con struction of the refinery in sub-Arctic Canada, from which fuel was piped to the Alaska Highway and the string of air fields handling Lease-Lend aircraft bound for Siberia) would be of great strategical advantage to U.S. air bases in Alaska, and particularly to the strategically important base hard-by the most northerly point of Alaska, Point Barrow. Mean while, Umiat airstrip serves not only the oil camp but Alaska's airborne wolf-hunters. That light aircraft and 12-bore shotguns are an ideal com bination against the wolf is confirmed by the "bags" of indi vidual gunners. For example, one marksman (who on one occasion shot a blade-tip from his Piper's airscrew) has accounted for more than 50 animals in one year. Another, named Cliff Hudson, killed a pack of six wolves in ten shots. Frank Glazer, a small man with many years of bush-flying experience, told me of shooting ten out of a pack of fourteen. "All the wolf can do is keep on running," he said, "And all you have to do is run it down." But hunting of this kind calls for special experience both in piloting and in navigation. Much of the territory over which the aircraft operate is uninhabited, unknown, viciously broken and subject to violent storms and to temperatures of "60 below." The pilot must be capable of turning suddenly when flying along a narrow valley, and coming in over a running wolf at exactly the right height and angle—"a little to one side and no more than 30ft above your target"—to allow the gunner to bowl it over. The spread effect of a shot gun offers a better chance of scoring a hit than would a bullet from a rifle. But the range of a 12-bore is limited, and it takes Typical of the conditions which sometimes face the wolf-hunters—one of whom is seen carrying his shotgun—is this photograph taken in early March during a thaw sandwiched between two "40 below" spells. The aircraft are a Cessna 170 and a Norseman of Wien Alaska Airlines. not only a sure touch but a modicum of nerve to come down low enough to bring the target within the gunner's range, especially in "grey weather" when the white of the sky and of the snow-clad tundra merge; and judging the distance between one's skis and the ground is a matter of guesswork. Aircrew must also be of ready imagination, as indeed they are—witness the report filed at Umiat by the previously mentioned gunner, Maurice ("Prop-Shot") Kelly, and told to me in the Eskimo settlement of Kotzebue. Firing at a pure white wolf, Kelly shot four inches off the end of the airscrew. The Piper was flying in extremely broken country. But the pilot, bush-flyer Buck Harris (with a Van Dyke beard and a stop-at-nothing reputation) brought his machine down, carved four inches off the undamaged blade, took off again and made a supply dump some 200 miles to the west, where the spares available included an airscrew. The standard drill is to reconnoitre for wolf trails at from 500 to 1,000ft, the exact height depending on visibility and the country being swept. On spotting a trail the pilot descends to 50ft or so (again, depending on the terrain). Often it is only a few minutes before the gunner is firing out of his window; and where the target proves to be a pack the pilot turns and repeats his run as often as necessary. There is a ready market for wolf skins and, where possible, the pilot puts down near a dead animal. To land even a light aircraft on snow-clad tundra, or in broken country, calls for delicate handling, quick thinking and an ability to "read" snow surfaces—that is, to judge distances and heights and correctly interpret shadows caused by rock outcrops, mushy ice and other hazards. But there are pitfalls against which there is no safeguard—such, for example, as that which caused the previously named Frank Glazer an anxious moment. He and his pilot had turned for base, after killing a pack
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