FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1344.PDF
458 FLIGHT THE LOFOTEN ROUTE . . . Svolvaer, waving to tiny fishing vessels bucking before a heavyswell. We took off for Narvik at 5.30 p.m., and at 700ft headed eastfor the mile-wide gap between Little Molla and her sister Great Molla. The air was now fairly smooth, and I was gazing idlydown at some neat farmsteads on the shore, when the aeroplane gave a series of violent lurches. Rydland smiled at my alarmand said this always happened here because of the peculiar shape and proximity of the two island-mountains. A very beautifulstretch of landscape followed. The mountains stood back, and the undulating coastal strip broke away into thousands of islets,each one edged in a flashing white ring of foam. The larger ones held neat houses, some with a tiny lush meadow of emeraldgreen, running down to a small beach of startling white sand. Rocks were covered in brown and yellow lichen, and here andthere a patch of deep red seaweed had been washed up. It was by one of these islands that Rydland made a pre-cautionary landing last year when the weather unexpectedly closed in before and behind him. He and his six passengerswere put up at the nearby house for the night, and the next morning went happily on their way. This, let it be added, isnot a common experience in Wider0e's operations. Indeed, they keep up a remarkable regularity in face of great weather andterrain difficulties, and last year the schedule was cancelled only once. The A.D.F. needle sidled round to the left as we passedLodingen beacon and entered Ofot Fjord, near the head of which Narvik stands. Just before the town, a slight detour to the righttook us to peer down at the rusting remains of the destroyer Kelly at the mouth of Skjomen Fjord, reminder of an epic navalbattle fifteen years ago. We crossed the town, which lies at the foot of a 4,000ft mountain, glimpsing the cemetery of the Alliedforces who landed here in 1940; flew into the narrow Beisfjord, which forms the southern side of the peninsula on which Narviklies; made a tight turn of 180 degrees; and landed beside a harbour full of iron-ore ships. The place seemed rather sombrethat evening, overshadowed by steep fells whose dark sides were relieved only by the occasional silver thread of a fallingstream. The airport boasts a floating jetty, a hut which houses a waitingroom, a radio repair section, and an engineer's living quarters. The staff consists of two happy engineers and an energetic.manwho seems to do everything that is needed, including the driving of the patrol boat with which he clears the harbour before take-offs and landings. A local travel agent looks after the passenger bookings, ticketing, etc. A substantial new hangar is providedwith a winch for hauling the aeroplane up from the harbour, and it affords facilities for carrying out major maintenance. The pilot's work is nominally over by six o'clock, but he isalways on call for ambulance flight. This may mean going, at a moment's notice, anywhere from the remote archipelago ofRost, a hundred miles away off the southern tip of the Lofotens, to a small lake up in the mountains by the Swedish frontier. Lastseason these calls averaged two a week, and they had to be fitted in on top of the 4i hours' daily scheduled flying.This may seem a short day's work, but it takes no account of the manifold calls on a pilot's time and energy outside his actualflying. The telephone rings often in his hotel room: a call from Oslo to discuss maintenance questions; one from Wider0e'sbase at Tromso to say they are sending a Norseman in to Narvik tomorrow on a charter trip; an agitated mother, having missedthe steamer, wanting to know if there is a spare seat to Gravdal in the morning. The day starts at 7.30 with telephone calls toBodo, Svolvaer and Gravdal, to discuss the weather. I flew four days on this route, and on each one the elementsprovided new surprises. This is a part of the world where many of the North Atlantic depressions end their days, piling up oneon another, and there are no reporting stationswest of the Lofotens to give the forecaster muchidea of what is on the way. The only landingplace on this route that has radio is Bodo, andfrequent use is made of the government stationswhich ring the coasts of Norway. The ones onthis route are at Evens- jaer and Lodingen, andtheir operators are very quick at telephoning Taking off, Svolvaer. Rost Archipelago off the south-west extremity of the Lofoten Islands. Private aerial photography is forbidden in Norway, and this is an official one taken by Wideroe's. Gravdal and Svolvaer for immediate weather reports. It wasinteresting to note that Norwegian pilots and operators address one another in English, sticking strictly to the Alpha Bravoalphabet. The only time Norwegian was used was in talking over the V.H.F. to the patrullje bot before landing. One hazard of aviation is absent from this route, that ofrunning into other aircraft, because practically no one else operates here; but the Otter makes frequent position reports allthe same, abeam of places with such difficult names as Kjeoy, Bjornoy and Skjaervoy. H.F. communication is generally good(so are the aircraft batteries) for it is possible to call Lodingen while sitting on the water at Gravdal and get the latest Narvikweather. R/T. traffic is light, and this admits of a certain informalityover the air. For instance, one morning it was found that there would be eleven passengers out of Gravdal, so it was agreed thatI should be dropped off at Svolvaer for the day. After giving Lodingen his "Airborne from Narvik" report, Rydland said,"Would you please telephone my friend Bjorn at Svolyasr and ask him to look after an Englishman till I come back this after-noon?" The operator willingly agreed, and a few minutes later came back with, "Your friend say sorry, he is ill, but he fixanother man. A'right?" As it turned out, he fixed a charming woman reporter from the Lofotposten, the leading northernnewspaper. But that is another story. During the long turn-rounds at Bodo there was time to talkmore about the job of a pilot on this route. One might expect him to become bored, flying the same three short legs six days aweek, but Rydland pointed out that the eternal variations of sea and sky are always giving surprises. As an example, on thesecond morning we crept low out of Ofot fjord, through a thick shower, and picked out the route rock by rock to Svolvaer. Onthe water there we received a special message from Evensjaer that Gravdal was reporting a 200ft cloud base, wind gusting upto 30 kt and 1,000 yards' visibility in heavy rain. There were no passengers or freight for Gravdal this time, only a few packetsof letters, and it might have been considered fair to by-pass the place in view of the weather. But there is something of the PonyExpress tradition about Wider0e's—"the mail must go through." So. "Well go and have a look, anyway," said Rydland. Twenty-
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
