Old airplanes are intoxicating. They are the perfect vehicle for the embellishment and romanticiation of history. Those who experienced that history tend to view those airplanes with a great deal more pragmatism.
No airplane represents this conundrum best than the Canadian Museum of Flight's 1937 Waco AQC-6 Cabin or "Big Red" as she is known around the hangar. Her sister ships may have been flown by the likes of Howard Hughes - the museum Waco is fondly remembered for the her blue-collar practicality while serving the rambunctious West Coast communities under the auspices of Dr. Jack Pickup. (The CMF website has a more extensive article on Dr. Pickup, courtesy of Aeropane Monthly).
In the early 1950s there was little time for embellishment for those living on the rugged British Columbia coast from Campbell River northward. Work hard. Play harder. The flotsam was often thrown to Dr. Pickup and his associates.
Peggy Hobbs was an operating-room nurse in the Alert Bay hospital from 1951 to 1953. Her husband Sam was one of the village's R.C.M.P. officers. Ed Bray was a bush pilot who flew out of Alert Bay from 1952 to 1955. Glidepath interviewed these individuals to give you a little bit of an idea of what it was like for those who experienced that history firsthand.
Peggy Hobbs remembers Dr. Pickup as being an extremely dedicated physician and surgeon - the proverbial jack of all trades in medicine. Peggy accompanied Dr. Pickup in the Waco on serveral emergency flights to the logging camps and fishing villages, but tends to view the Waco with the same utilitarianism as her former employer.
In Aeroplane Monthly, Dr. Pickup stated there were patients to look after and he couldn't afford to waste time. It would appear some pilots didn't like to waste any time obtaining a flying licence either. One of Peggy's more vivid memories involved a relief surgeon/pilot, sans pilot licence.
"I didn't know he didn't have a licence. He seemed perfectly fine to me" said Peggy.
"He had apparently flown bombers in the war" volunteered Peggy's husband, Sam.
"We got up and got down in his airplane, but he didn't last very long as our relief surgeon" sighed Peggy. "Like many there, they just took life as it came."
Ed Bray was one of Dr. Pickup's best friends who often flew Jack to his calls. "Jack was a pilot, but did not fly to emergencies unless he really had to because he was so busy at the hospital. I had my own airplane, but Jack said I should know how to fly that Waco in case something happens. I went out and flew it around for a little while."
This is a good testament to Ed's piloting skills. No lesson. No simulator. And many times, no altitude either.
"When the weather was socked in, you flew ten feet above the water line. There's more than one guy in a fishing boat sitting there on deck minding his own business who had to duck because of another low-flying airplane. On really bad days we would just taxi. Every pilot including Jack carried a tide book to see if the tide was going to be high or low" laughed Ed.
Joking aside, Ed summed up his memory of Dr. Pickup: "A lot of people's lives were affected by Jack Pickup. His airplane played a significant role."
Perhaps that is the best embellishment of all.
- by Carla Deminchuk
Originally published in the Summer 2009 issue of Glidepath
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