Editor’s Note: Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon.
Before we get to the meat and potatoes of this week’s column, I’d like to personally extend an invitation to you, Dear Reader, to attend a short lecture I will be giving next month at the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance.
Editor’s Note: Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores in Avalon.
Before we get to the meat and potatoes of this week’s column, I’d like to personally extend an invitation to you, Dear Reader, to attend a short lecture I will be giving next month at the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance.
You see, in between writing for this newspaper and managing a small hotel and showing the movie twice a week in the historic Avalon Theatre, I managed to produce and direct an award-winning documentary on the seaplane history of Catalina Island.
In 2011, “Wings Across the Channel” won a Superior Filmmaking award from the Las Vegas International Film Festival. Later that year, KCET-TV in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest independent public television station, built a whole pledge drive around the film and showed it a dozen times.
To make a long story short, which is probably what you want anyway, I’ve been invited to appear at next month’s “Celebrity Lectures” at the WMOF (I can’t wait to see who the celebrity is!) and show parts of the film. Up until now, if you wanted to see what I looked like in real life, you had to take the three very dissimilar thumbnails of me that the Islander alternates weekly with my column, add them all up and divide by three.
The show starts at 11 a.m. on Saturday, August 16, at Louis Zamperini Field, 3315 Airport Drive, Red Baron #3 in Torrance. The program will last about one hour or until I put the last person to sleep.
Funny I should bring up our seaplane history, because that’s exactly what this week’s column is about. Or, more specifically, the zany history of some of the antics, practical jokes and unintentional mishaps from the seaplane days, some of which will make your hands tremble and your blood curl.
People under the age of about 30 will have trouble believing that some of the following events could have actually taken place. How could a world filled with a bunch of old folks be so harrowing and adventurous?, they might ask.
But it was a different world back then. I’m not saying it was better or worse, it was just different. The things that people got away with “back in the day”—things that were considered quite normal—would leave most members of the Age of Litigation and Political Correctness drop-jawed.
In order to spare some embarrassment, I am intentionally editing out some of the names of the involved parties and even airlines. Some of the following stories appear in my film, some not.
Let’s begin with the wild adventures of the “cigar smoking pilot”:
Back in the 1960s, most seaplanes took off and landed out at Pebbly Beach. To get in and out of the water, they used the ramp that still exists about where helicopter pad is today.
One fine day, a Grumman Goose (the preferred amphibian of the day) was having trouble taking off for its trip back to the mainland. Turned out the nose of the plane was a little too light.
To remedy the situation, the pilot had his helper bring up two or three 5-gallon cans of gasoline from the rear of the plane to put in the compartment in the nose.
This seemed to work, so the pilot and his full plane of passengers took off and headed across the channel.
About halfway across, the pilot and passengers began to notice the distinct smell of gasoline wafting through the cabin.
Fearing an imminent explosion, the pilot—who had a lit cigar in his mouth—landed the Goose in the middle of the channel and cut the engines.
He then proceeded to climb out onto the nose of the plane, open the compartment and dump all of the gasoline into the sea. While he was doing this, he CONTINUED PUFFING AWAY ON HIS CIGAR.
Once the offending gasoline was over the side, he climbed back into the pilot’s seat, took off and flew to Long Beach without incident.
The pilots were known for being pranksters and the practical jokes they played on the ramp agents, their passengers and even each other were legion and legendary.
Former ramp agent and station manager David L. Johnston, author of “Knights of Avalon” (Horizon Line Press, 2005), once told me a story about pilot “Wild Bill” Kilgour.
One day, a Goose-load of passengers was patiently waiting for their pilot on the tarmac at the Long Beach Airport for a trip to Catalina.
That pilot was Kilgour who eventually showed up and took a seat in the passenger compartment rather than the pilot’s seat. Instead of wearing his uniform, he was dressed in regular civilian clothing and therefore most of the passengers assumed he was one of them.
After a few minutes of sitting there, Kilgour finally turned to the other passengers and asked “Doesn’t anyone know how to fly this thing?”
Caught off guard by the question, the other passengers remained silent.
“Well, then I’m going to give it a try,” said Kilgour. He then proceeded to climb into the pilot’s seat, start the engines and fly the astonished passengers all the way to Avalon.
A similar story, told by former ramp agent and Avalonian Brian Dawes, involved pilot Fred Austin. As his passengers waited aboard the Goose out at Pebbly Beach for the flight to Long Beach, Austin had the ramp agents push him out to his waiting plane in a wheelchair.
Once at the side of the plane, Austin climbed out of the wheelchair, crawled up the ladder into the plane, crawled through the passenger compartment in view of all the passengers and then lifted himself into the pilot seat. He then fired the Goose up and took everyone to Long Beach.
I think the most harrowing story I’ve heard was just told to me recently by a long-time visitor to Catalina. I have not verified the story, but knowing what I know about the person who told it to me—and knowing what I know about those crazy seaplane days—I would not be surprised if this really happened.
Picture a Grumman Goose loaded with passengers flying toward Avalon Bay. This particular Goose is missing the float that goes under the plane’s right wing, having lost it on take-off. Without it, the plane is unbalanced and more difficult for even a seasoned pilot to control.
Since the main job of the float is to keep the plane’s wing out of the water, the plane is in danger of possibly cartwheeling on landing if the pilot misjudges the weight imbalance and dips the wing in the water at high speed.
So what does the pilot do? He asks one of his passengers, a young man, to climb out of the passenger compartment and onto the wing to help balance the plane out for the crucial water landing. Yes, you read that right.
The young man does as he is instructed and climbs out onto the wing, leaning out as far from the fuselage as he dares into the 150 mile-per-hour wind to distribute the plane’s weight more evenly.
The pilot tries to ease the plane into the water as gently as possible, but the blast from the spray of the water (imagine that) knocks the man off the plane and into the sea.
The plane safely lands without cartwheeling and the dazed young man is rescued by a boat that happens upon the scene.
Well, that just about does it for this week. If I hear any other similar stories I’ll be sure to pass them on to you.
In the meantime, thank you for flying Mysterious Island Airlines.
