Early 170 Video.

[counsellj]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH1rd6SQ8FI

Here is a link that features a C-170 on floats from back when our illustrious President, Mr. Pulley was just a wet behind the ears engineer. I haven't had a chance to watch it all, but the first few seconds was worth the post. Notice the "mis-speak" about -140's, also the sea-plane cowling cuff.

Happy New Years everyone.

Jughead

[Ryan Smith]

Looks like N9272A (airplane in the video) was deregistered in 1955. Pretty cool video - how exciting it must have been to be flying back then.

Thanks for sharing, Jughead! Happy New Year.

[edbooth]

As I had noted a few years ago, Bud was our guest speaker at the Fairbanks convention. Was glad to have gotten to meet him then. Was really a neat guy. I don't think there are anymore around like him.

[hilltop170]

Jughead wasn't too far off with his comment about me above. In 1983, my first job assignment in the arctic was at the new Kuparuk Oil Field which was about half-way between the Helmrick's homestead on the Colville River delta and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, all on the north coast Alaska on the Arctic Ocean. There was no road to the Helmricks' in the summer but in winter an ice road was plowed out across the Arctic Ocean extending from the end of the Kuparuk road system to the Colville River delta then south to the Eskimo village of Nuiqsut.

The Helmricks would sometims stop in at the Kuparuk base camp and get a cup of coffee or eat lunch from time to time in the winter. One summer, the Arctic Tern C170 blew a jug just east of Kuparuk and Bud landed on a tundra pond without incident. The jug was replaced and Bud continued on his way. His sons ran a fuel distributor out of Prudhoe Bay so we saw them on a regular basis when they came to the Kuparuk diesel plant to load their trucks. Good people.

[counsellj]

Jughead wasn't too far off with his comment about me above.

Richard,

You weren't implying that I might occasionally stretch the truth or apply the 10% rule were you?

Jughead

[hilltop170]

Not at all, but the video WAS made a "few" years before I got out of college. In 1983 Bud was still flying the 170 then. It didn't look any different than in the video either.

[pdb]

I sent this clip on to Jeff Helmericks whom I though for sure would have already seen it. He hadn't. This was his reply.

Hi Pete,

Thanks for sending the link, I had not seen it. I remember meeting J Frey at Walker Lake many years ago, probably in the mid 70’s.

Most defiantly a different time in aviation, no GPS, no VOR’s, no nothing. I remember in my early years of flying how little there was other than a compass and a map to navigate the Arctic, and my flying was 20 years later than the events shown in this compilation of film clips. I also remember the further north you went the more you trusted the snow drifts and the less you trusted the compass.

Jeff

More on Bud: http://www.adn.com/article/remembering- ... helmericks