Auto-biography of Jerry c russell The Early Years

Adventures with the Float Plane

I had always wanted to get a float plane to keep at the island, and use to fish the various lakes in the area. One day while I was at Einarson’s Flying service, Hans told me about a guy who wanted to sell his Aeronca champ on floats and skies. I later followed up on this and found out the guy had completely rebuilt the airplane and shortly afterwards had heart problems. He then died during a heart operation. I contacted his widow a month or so later and she said she wanted to sell the airplane. A friend of his took us out to where the airplane was stored in the winter and we looked it over and started the engine. I fell in love with the airplane. It was a Aeronca Champ built in 1949. It had originally been a 7CCM in the military and was converted to civilian with wheels and skies in the fifties. It had always been in the International Falls area and Francis Einardson knew the planes history and watched the rebuild. He advised it was a good airplane, so I began negotiations with the widow. As it turned out it was a good thing I had a group of guys with me when I went to her house, because she was not the grieving widow I expected. She met us at the door in short/shorts. While we sat at the kitchen table talking about the airplane, she sat on two stools with her legs up in the air. It just about blew the cool of the guys with me, especially Glen Edwards who is always hornie any way. I found out later she is a real playgirl, who was involved with a vice president at the mill while her husband was sick. We shortly arrived at a price of $15000 and she agreed to the sale. She wanted me to call her next summer and take her fishing as a condition of the sale however I knew that would lead to trouble so I never did. In the spring as soon as the ice went out Gibson and I went up to get the Airplane. It was on the shore about 40 yards from the lake. Francis Einarson went with us to help us get it in the water. We dragged it, both with the engine and pushing on the struts to the water. Francis and I got in the airplane with me in the front, and he told me what to do. I took the airplane off, flew around a little bit, made two landings and that was that. From there I flew the plane to the island. I flew for the next few years before I had a check pilot meet me at the landing in the Falls and I got my sea plane rating. That check ride only took a few minutes. I made two landings, and he said you can fly this airplane.

The first year I flew in to many lakes within 30 miles or so of the island. Most had no camps on them so we had the lake to ourselves. We put a small motor on the struts and fished out of the airplane to try them out. Those that fished good we marked so that we could drag a boat into them by snowmobile in the winter. The second year I bought a rubber boat (SODIAK) that we could haul in leave for a while and fish out of. Over a period of a few years we ended up with about five boats and motors hidden on various lakes in the area. On weekends I would ferry whoever was with me in and we had some great fishing. Some of these days six or seven trips to get everybody in or out. Therefore in five or six years I got a tremendous number of take-offs and landings, even though the air time was not that much. One trip I took John Scudder in for a days fishing. When we were shore lunching, I lost my glasses while collecting wood. We hunted for several hours and finally gave up. As soon as I got in the air coming out of that remote lake, I turned to John and said “you’ll have to give me directions on how to get back because I can’t see”. I thought John was going to have a heart attack because he didn’t have any idea which way to go. Finally I told him I was only kidding because I could see fine at a distance, my correction was only for reading. We flew in most weather since we were over water most of the time and rarely got more than 500 ft in the air. One trip with Mark and Tom Wycore however we waited to long in the evening and a heavy fog came in and trapped us on Skinny lake. We found a old campsite that had a piece of plastic that we could put up on some poles, as it rained most of the night. Only had two beers and no food, so we ,made a frying pan out of one of the beer cans and fried up some walleyes for dinner. It was a long cold night, and when we woke up in the morning the airplane was gone. We had tied it up to a old dock and during the night the wind had pulled the board off the dock and the plane drifted away. Fortunately we had a boat and found the airplane a little way down the lake with to damage.
New Cabin Construction

In 1961 I retired from CDC, and became a independent consultant. However CDC wanted me to stay, so we agreed I would work half time and be paid hourly rates consistent with consultants in this industry. My close friend Art Hoffman who owned a consulting company advised me on the rates I should charge. I ended up making more than when I was working full time and only worked half time. Since now we could spend much more time at the island we began constructing a hangar for the plane, a work shop, and a new home on the south part of the island. We bought the trusses for the hangar and hauled them across the ice in the truck. Fortunately that was a good year on the ice. In the spring we cut the poles for the walls from the other side of the bay, set the poles and raised the trusses. We bought the steel from Do It Center and enclosed the building. All went smooth. although we did drop one of the trusses as we were raising it and dam near wiped out Al Winter. The trusses were brought in, in two pieces and we had to make a form and connect the two pieces with gusset plates. The doors were made on site. We got the door rollers and hardware from the Do It Center. The hangar is a large building, was roughly built but would last over 16 year

The next building we built was the shop. It was put on cement blocks, which raise the risk of having the building settle, although at this time it is 15 years and it is fine. We insulated it, wired it and put in gas lights and a stove. Toots and I done most of the building although both Dennis Gibson and Al Winter had a hand in\it.

{uokududududu^udud

yuyqyqyjyjydydydydy

ysysysysysyso

EEEEEEE

xxxxxxlxxxxxxxxlxxlx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxnxxxnnnnxxxxxxxxd

Times New Roman

CompObj