Write On!

              As a last- ditch effort ( or as he related it..." like pissing on a forest fire")
he threw his lunch into the fray and, while the dogs were fighting over it,
managed to land the plane, get out and shut the door. Then, in his words
again, he approached the situation like " a hive of hornets". Opening the side
door momentarily, one at a time he looped a rope over the nearest dog, pulled
it out, shut the door and tied the snarling animal to whatever he could find till
they were all out and separated. After repairing the tether he reloaded his
' passengers' and continued on to destination. When someone, probably me,
asked if he was afraid, he laughed and said it was no worse than handling a
plane load of drunken hunters. Of course we all laughed, it was a funny story,
but I know it would have been terrifying to be alone and in such danger. Sled
dogs are dangerous... if he had once gone down they would have attacked in a
pack and much later, when he was reported missing and when weather
permitted, some other pilot would have retrieved his remains and a wife would
have been notified.
Rusty once told us of a Northern mercy flight. It was in the fall so,
since the water was still open in Sudbury, he took off on pontoons. His
destination, however, was frozen so he would need skis to land. He came
down on open water on Hudson Bay, and ran in close to shore. When the tide
went out, the plane was up on shore ice. He had just a few hours to change
from pontoons to skis and take off on this ice before the tide came back in and
covered it again with water. Can you imagine such a task, one man with
minimum tools and equipment, in the dark and in bitter cold? Well, he
accomplished it and, I might add, did it all over again in reverse on the return
trip. Another life was saved because of the dedication and ingenuity of a
Northern bush pilot.
Another fabulous story involved a plane that went through the ice on
a far Northern lake. Apparently the pilot taxied it into a thinly frozen over area
where the village had cut their summer ice supply. No one was hurt and
another plane came in to fly everyone on to their destination. Retrieving the
plane, however, took awhile. With primitive lifting devices, they finally raised
the plane from the frigid water and skidded it back onto secure ice. A
mechanic flew in and looked it over. After drying necessary electrical
components and getting the motor running, he and a pilot climbed in to fly it
back to Sudbury for a complete overhaul. Upon landing in Sudbury, it was put
on a flat bed and taken to the big hanger across town and put inside to warm
up before starting repairs. Imagine the look on the faces of the mechanic and
pilot when they walked into the hanger the next day to find the wings hanging
down on the floor. It seems they had been badly stressed when the plane went
through the ice. When they thawed, they literally fell off... and it had been
flown back! As gullible as I was and as much as I had faith in Rust/ s veracity,
I did wonder if this was true but many years later I read this exact same story
in the book about Austin Airways. I had the opportunity to talk to the author
and he confirmed it as true: he had met the pilot and had seen pictures.