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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0452.PDF
452 FLIGHT The preservation and census of wild game and the enforcement of poaching laws is the responsibility of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's air division. Here an F.W.S. Widgeon returns from a sortie, watched by two members of a goose-banding crew. OFF THE BEATEN TRACK cepter forces. Next Canada undertook to build a complete radarchain along the 55th parallel. Known as the Mid-Canada Line, this $170 million project was a tremendous job; but its difficultiesand achievements have been overshadowed by those of the fantastic DEWline (Distant Earl Warning line) radar chain whichthe U.S.A.F. is forging along 3,000 miles of the Arctic Circle from Alaska to Greenland. For generations, Canadian statesmen have dreamed of openingup the far north. Now it is being done with the help of the greatest air transport operation since the Berlin Air Lift.Although primarily an American responsibility, the R.CA.F., R.C.N. and 15 Canadian private operators are working flat outto supplement the work of Arctic supply ships sailing in hazardous, uncharted waters. Mosquitoes of Spartan Air Services began flying a photo surveyof the whole length of the Canadian Arctic coast some three years ago. Early in 1955, in weather that was "60 below", a start wasmade on runways of ice and packed snow to receive the first supply aircraft, and soon the C-46s, DC-3s and Yorks began tofly in a never-ending stream from Hay River, Norman Wells, Edmonton and Yellowknife in the west, North Bay, Churchill,Montreal, Mont Joli and Knob Lake in the east, to points farther north than even the famed "bush" pilots had ventured. With the help of two squadrons of Globemasters from the 63rdTroop Carrier Wing of the U.S. 18th Air Force, the initial task of flying in 22,500 tons of equipment and 1,500 men was com-pleted by May 15th, at a cost of 12 aircraft lost or damaged. The seven C-46s contributed by Canadian Pacific Airlines alone lifted5,815,991 lb of freight to DEWline sites in the first 20 weeks. Over 72 per cent of their total payload consisted of petrol and oil;but the remainder included food, snowploughs, electronic equip- ment, aircraft spares, pre-fabricated buildings, curtains, furnitureand even the proverbial kitchen sinks. Flying 24 hours a day from Norman Wells in the Northwest Territory, they logged inthat opening spell nearly 30,500 miles each week. Second phase of Operation DEWline was to construct properairstrips, and when this was finished work began on the radar sites themselves. Now it was the helicopter's turn to lend a hand,because when the R.C.N's icebreaker Labrador sailed north to shepherd thin-hulled merchant ships through heavy ice to DEW-line unloading sites, her equipment included a Piasecki HUP-2 and two Bell HTL-4s. Their primary duties during five months in Arctic waters werereconnaissance to find channels through the ice, and flying ashore surveyors and hydrographers engaged in mapping both the landand uncharted rocks off the coast. They also took repeated sound- ings ahead of the vessel with a hand-line, and discovered in oneplace a shoal only five fathoms below the surface where the charts showed 53 fathoms. Other operations ranged from searching for, and finding, amissing U.S. soldier to flying ashore two complete navigation aid stations and the personnel to erect and operate them. Afterselecting the site for the first of these stations, the three helicopters completed in under 20 flying hours the job of ferrying ashore28,640 lb of tents, shelters, generators, mast, equipment, fuel, food, a tide gauge and the lumber to build a crib for it. The secondstation could not have been set up at all by conventional methods, as tidal conditions and treacherous shoals made the coastunapproachable. On another occasion, complete daymark beacons, weighingaround 700 lb and standing 15ft high, were erected on the flight deck of the Labrador, picked up one at a time by the hoveringHUP and transferred to exactly the right positions on the coast. In a few places, white settlers and Eskimos were encountered,and then the ship's doctor was flown ashore to bring medical aid and advice to people who, sometimes, had never seen a doctor.So, here, as in the steaming jungles of Malaya, military necessity is bringing on its wings help and civilization to primitive peoples.There are, however, some folks in the Alaska area for whom aviation has proved anything but a blessing, because it has dis-turbed the peace and quiet of their salmon fishing. The fact that they were doing it unlawfully and that the aircraft carried theinsignia of the U.S. Fish and Wildfowl Service was their main concern, because they knew that their boat was being photo-graphed and that the pictures would be taken down and used in evidence in court! Usually when this happens, the poachersenter a plea of guilty on the spot. Law enforcement of this kind is only one of a vast number of The luxury of many U.S. business aircraft is exemplified by this interior of an oil company's Convair 240; note the television set. The U.S.A. is the foremost patron of business flying: American executive aircraft fly more hours than all the domestic airlines combined. jobs done by the Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates morethan 35 aircraft in Alaska alone. Completely replacing the time- honoured teams of huskies, they are responsible for over halfof the annual 240,000 miles of travelling by agents of the Service in the territory. The fleet is varied, but has a hard core of war-surplus Grum-man Goose and Widgeon amphibians and assorted Pipers, plus a collection of other types that includes the last few airworthyBoeing YL-15 Scouts. They are flown a total of about 12,500 hours a year in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti andthe Dominican Republic, as well as the United States and Alaska. One of the biggest jobs is waterfowl census and for oneparticularly important count in California's San Joaquin Valley, the Service managed to acquire the assistance of two U.S.A.F.RF-80's, which raced low over a 22-mile strip of marsh-land photographing birds that would have been scared away by theoncoming noise of slower aircraft. In North Dakota sweet clover seed has been sown from the air to provide feed for waterfowl, andin many places spraying has kept down plants like water chest- nuts which encroach on the birds' feeding grounds. Ducks and geese are "herded" to keep them from destroyingfarmers' crops. Blocks of salt are dropped in some Western states to lure deer and elk off over-browsed areas. Migration studiesare made easier by flying investigators to remote areas where birds are to be banded. On the fishery side, survey parties are flown along streams todetect obstructions in the way of spawning salmon. Others land on lakes and bays to get water specimens for study. Aerial
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