That was all he wanted to know.īill Windrum took few risks. "He just asked me, 'Windrum, if you had to go overseas tomorrow, would you go?' After some thought, I said yes, and I was in. "The head of the Royal Canadian Navy, Admiral Kingmill, didn't give me any aptitude or intelligence tests when he called me in for an interview," he says. It all began when he applied to join the Royal Navy Air Service in World War One. But he, too, is one of "the lucky ones" who didn't get into any trouble they couldn't get out of and can now see the great contributions that pioneering airmen have made to commercial flying.Īviation for Bill Windrum has come a long way.
#Brush pilot safe full#
Unless there was a river or a settlement nearby, he would rarely get out.īill Windrum has had his full share of hazardous experiences.
An elaborate search would be made, but the pilots wouldn't know where to look in that vast area. or with serious motor trouble, he might never be found. Should he be forced down in the wilderness, out of gas. He loaded his cargo, which he sometimes purchased and "fueled" his plane by loading 40-gallon barrels of aviation gas. He frequently did his own mechanical work.ĭuring cold weather, he warmed his plane in the morning with blow pots and put it to bed at night. or the Northwest Territories, he used the roughest of maps. If his run was across northern B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan. "They consider them unsafe."įlying is different in other ways, too.
"Bill" Windrum, a former bush pilot of fifteen years standing who helped develop Canada's vast northland when the airplane was the only means of transportation. "Pilots today wouldn't fly the planes we did," says W. Is commercial flying what it used to be? Not in the opinion of a quiet-voiced man who now sits in an administrative office of Canadian Pacific Airlines at the Vancouver International Airport.
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