In the Shadow of Eagles

Rudy Billberg, Jim Rearden

Description

In the Shadow of Eagles is a uniquely American saga. Rudy Billberg’s story takes readers through the great age of aviation, from his first airplane ride in Minnesota in 1927 to his bush flying career in Alaska beginning in 1941. One of the authentic aviation pioneers, Billberg writes of his countless adventures and close calls during the decades; stunt flying in Midwestern air shows, flying out of Nome into the frozen Arctic, and more.
Filled with history and insight, Billberg’s narrative chronicles the lives of many of his fellow Alaskan pilots, including the great pioneer airmen Joe Crosson, Harold Gillam, Noel Wien and Sam White, and tells of the early flying machines they all flew—Travel Airs, Pilgrims, Fairchilds, Bellancas. Rudy Billberg has given us a great story of his time.
Alaskans took to airplanes like no other people in the world ever have. From the beginning, they flew 30 to 40 times as much as other Americans, measured in number of flights per capita or by the passenger mile. Today, Alaska has more then 10,000 pilots, one for every 45 residents. One aircraft is found in the state for every 50 Alaskans. There are six times as many pilots per capita and 12 times as many airplanes per capita as in the rest of the United States.
Only five years after Noel Wien established sky trails from Fairbanks, the Territory of Alaska (population 50,000) boasted 57 graded landing fields. Using these fields were 29 airplanes.
All Alaskans didn’t immediately welcome airplanes. Contracts for hauling mail had long gone to drivers of dog teams, to horse teamsters, to stern-wheeled riverboats. Much of the economy of Interior Alaska revolved around ground transportation. Furthermore, in winter powerful dog sled mail teams broke trail, and others were able to use these trails—not insignificant in snow country with long winters.

Sujets

• Transportation
• Noel Wien
• Samuel White
• History
• Minnesota
• Aviation

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780882409313
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Praise for In the Shadow of Eagles :
In the old movie serials, the hero invariably cheated what looked like certain death only to survive, incredibly, to star in the next palpitating episode. The real-life saga of pionner Alaska bush pilot Rudy Billberg puts to shame such Hollywood hokum. . . . This book sparkles with reality because these adventures really happened.
- General Aviation News Flyer
A simply written autobiography full of excitement and descriptions of daring. . . . [Billberg] met local heroes, lived among natives 150 miles from the North Pole, learned to navigate the turbulence of mountain ranges the hard way, and flew by sight-no instruments, no radio-following braided rivers and descriptions of landmarks he had never seen. His loving accounts of antediluvian planes and their characteristics will intrigue the general reader and enthrall aviation buffs.
- Booklist
[Billberg s] account is full of difficult situations, anxious moments, and close calls . . . . Appealing for aviation buffs as well as for dreamers.
- Library Journal
Billberg s skill at managing midair crises makes for dramatic reading. . . . For the reader, it is a pleasure flight through a bygone era.
- Publisher s Weekly
In this likeable autobiography, Billberg teamed with Homer writer Jim Rearden to tell about the adventures that made him love flying. . . . In the Shadow of Eagles is a smooth flight for the reader. Billberg is one of those lucky people who loved his job passionately. This enthusiasm keeps his story soaring, and makes this a delightful book.
- Homer News
One of those daring young men in their flying machines who pioneered [aviation] was Rudy Billberg. . . . This book isn t just a book about Billberg s life. It s a book about an exciting occupation that was essential to the growth of the great land. And it is about the fliers who conquered Alaska in airplanes ranging from open-cockpit Swallow biplanes to military transport command C-47s.
- Bellingham (WA) Herald
In the Shadow of Eagles
Rudy Billberg
A S TOLD TO Jim Rearden
Copyright 1992, 1998, 2009 by Rudy Billberg and Jim Rearden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
The print edition is available from Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Inc. pictorialhistoriespublishing.com
Library of Congress Control Number 2010931576
ISBN 978-1-57510-154-5
ISBN (e-book) 978-0-88240-931-3
Cover painting by Fred W. Thomas
Cover design by Vicki Knapton
Interior design by Alice C. Merrill
Maps by David Berger
Photo credits: All photos courtesy of Rudy Billberg unless otherwise noted. Three chapters in this book were previously published in Alaska magazine and were edited for inclusion here: (22) Rescue at Cape Romanzof, (23) Agates of the Nowitna, and the otter drama in (24) Wildlife Dramas.
Cover Painting: The Hornet Pilgrim piloted by Rudy Billberg flies through the remote, jagged wilderness of Alaska s Wrangell Mountains. In a land where trails end and humans seldom go, the 575-horsepower engine shatters a million years of silence. Watercolor on paper, 1991.
Published by Alaska Northwest Books An imprint of

P.O. Box 56118
Portland, Oregon 97238-6118
503-254-5591
www.graphicartsbooks.com
Dedicated to the Memory of Rudy Billberg, 1916-2007
Should all things perish, fleeting as a shooting star, Oh God, let not the ties break that bind me to the North.
- Evening prayer
Contents
Foreword by Bob Bergland
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Ted M. Spencer
T HE M INNESOTA Y EARS
Minnesota Map
1 First Flight
2 Solo
3 Flying at the Northwest Angle
4 Barnstorming
5 Forced Landings
6 Air Shows
7 Era s End
T HE A LASKA Y EARS
Alaska Map
8 Alaska
9 Alaskan Bush Pilot
10 The Northway Project
11 Noel Wien
12 Sam White
13 Harold Gillam
14 Joe Crosson
15 Air Transport Command
16 Return to Alaska
17 Bush Flying with the DC-3
18 Flying the T-50 Cessna
19 Galena
20 Fighting Forest Fires
21 Return to Nome
22 Rescue at Cape Romanzof
23 Agates of the Nowitna
24 Wildlife Dramas
25 Duggan and Walatka
26 Flight Plan Closed
Aviation Glossary
Index
Foreword
Few things get my blood racing like being near a piston-driven airplane, its throbbing engine at idle, waiting to take off for the wild blue yonder. I still remember my dad escorting me at age four to see, hear, and smell the Bergholt monoplane built by Erling Mickalson, assisted by the then-teenage Rudy Billberg and others. In the early 1930s my dad was a mechanic at Brude Motors, the Ford agency at Roseau, Minnesota, where the Bergholt stood, wings off, testing its new modified Model A Ford engine.
In the Shadow of Eagles is essential reading for all interested in old airplanes and their evolution. It s a fascinating series of connected stories by one of the real eagles of the Northland, Rudy Billberg. His experiences are more intriguing than fiction. They will enlighten and entertain those fascinated with the history of aviation in the uncharted North.
Historians and scholars will find the research and anecdotes here useful in following the role of the airplane on our frontiers during the 1920s and 30s, as was the horse during the previous 200 years in our history.
This book is fun reading, and Rudy Billberg, with his modest style, has done us all a great service.
- Bob Bergland

Former senator Bob Bergland, born and raised in Rudy Billberg s hometown of Roseau, Minnesota, represented Minnesota s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. Congress from 1971 to 1977 and served as President Jimmy Carter s secretary of agriculture.
Preface
My many years of friendship with Jim Rearden and his family have been rich and rewarding. Jim and I agreed long ago that the preservation of aviation s progress was both important and fascinating.
I pored through my files and reviewed my diaries. I reminisced by the hour as Jim asked questions and recorded. Jim s wife Audrey transcribed the tapes, and we selected and condensed the material. We went through aviation volumes from both of our libraries, to ensure that the book would be historically accurate.
Beyond intending the book to be a contribution to aircraft history, we have tried to share the thrills and adventure of 46 years of flying. Perhaps the stories will inspore both young and old to venture to Alaska, where flying continues to provide the major access to the remote regions of our forty-ninth state.
Because one man could never experience it all, I have injected stories of other Alaska pilots I knew. There was not room in this book to mention all of the airmen with whom I flew. Pilots I was unable to name but with whom I enjoyed a close association include:
With Northern Consolidated Airlines: Ray Anderson, Dick Ardaiz, Swede Blanchard, Harold Bogenrife, Ray Christiansen, Pat Crozier, Bob DesMarais, Jimmy Hoffman, Don Johnson, John Lynn, Ray Petersen, Edward J. Steger, R. J. Stevenson, Rheinhold Thiele, Orville Tosch, Oscar Underhill, Joe Vanderpoole, Oscar Winchell.
With Munz Northern Airline, Nome: Vern Bookwalter, Lloyd Hardy, Sig Krogstad (Alaska Airlines), Mike Tavis. With the Bureau of Land Management, Alaska: Paul Hanson, Bob Johnson. Bob Schlaeffle, Ed Thorsrud. While flying out of Fairbanks: Dick McIntyre. With Cook Inlet Aviation, Homer: Bob Gruber, Jim Reinhart, Clint Riis.
- Rudy Billberg
Roseau, Minnesota
March, 1991
In the Shadow of Eagles was first published in 1992. It went out of print in 2004, and now, with minor updating, is back in print. Sadly, Rudy Billberg died in 2007.
I first met Rudy Billberg in 1951 when he signed up for a class I taught at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. We became friends. It was months before I learned he was a commercial pilot, and it was years before he told me he had once been a barnstormer. Typical. Rudy was modest.
I know other Alaskan pilots he flew with; Rheinhold Thiel, Dick McIntyre, Jim Reinhard, who are still with us; others I knew, including Ray Christiansen and Bob Gruber, are gone. All considered him to be a perfectionist in the air. Bush residents he served remember him with fondness.
During the 20 years I was Outdoors Editor for Alaska magazine, I urged Rudy to write of his Alaskan flying experiences. Instead, he chose to write about wildlife and agates. He was too modest to write of flying. That is, until he learned that nurse Betty Shamblin, who had flown with him on a medivac, was seriously ill. Then he penned Rescue at Cape Romanzof ( Chapter 22 ). He wanted Betty to receive public credit for volunteering for that hazardous flight.
He finally agreed to write about his life as a pilot if I would work with him. To capture Rudy s story with authenticity, I attempted to retain his modesty and straightforward style by preserving his memories in his own words.
Rudy denied being an aviation pioneer. Got into barnstorming at the very end of it. Came to Alaska after the real pioneering was done, he said. This led to the title In the Shadow of Eagles , which Rudy felt accurately reflected the timing of his flying career; he came along in the wake of great early flyers-the eagles.
Rudy Billberg took to the air only three decades after the Wright brothers first powered flight, and he flew into the age of the