Flying With White Eagle
author: Ben Nuttall-Smith
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FLYING WITH THE FLEDGLINGS
In the spring of 1910, when I was seven years old, I listened to Colonel Coote talking with my dad about Charles Hamilton and his flying machine travelling through the air like a bird from Lulu Island, (Richmond) to New Westminster and back, a distance of 20 miles in only 30 minutes. The colonel was interested because he told my dad he considered flying machines would be very useful if ever there was another war. That same year, 1910, William Gibson of Victoria began experimenting with his own flying machine but people were laughing at him and saying he’d never get anywhere although he actually flew several times the following year.
Then some fellows in Vancouver built their own flying machine with an engine from the United States. They lost their machine in a fire. In 1911, Billy Stark, a Vancouver auto racer, went to California to learn about flying from Glenn Curtiss, who built airoplanes and was giving flying lessons. Billy returned to British Columbia with a pilot’s licence. In April, 1912, the Daily Province printed a story about flying with Billy Stark in his Curtiss “Flyer”. Father expressed some interest until Stark was injured late in 1912. At about that time, I sprained my ankle jumping from the hay barn into a pile of hay. I wanted to see what it would be like to fly through the air like Billy Stark.
Father told us boys, flying was far more dangerous than jumping from barns and we should stay away. Still, I knew the day would come when I too would fly, maybe even in my own flying machine.
By 1919, William E. Boeing and Eddie Hubbard were carrying international airmail between Vancouver and Seattle using a Boeing-built C2 seaplane while Captain Ernest Hoy, a former RAF pilot had flown from Vancouver to Calgary that August. Ten years later, with the start of the Depression, many pilots who had flown with the Royal Air Force during the war were now flying around the province enticing people to go for rides in their flying machines. Because they often used farmers’ fields and paid farmers a small part of their proceeds, the activity became known as “barnstorming”. Although, apart from one short jaunt in a Curtis JN-4, I had not been able to afford the luxury of flying, I had certainly developed the bug.
After Father returned from Europe, I heard how aviation had progressed during and since the First World War. I became increasingly fascinated with flying. I watched for hours as eagles and hawks glided high above our Fraser Valley farm, and imagined what it would be like to fly freely with them.
For years, I continued to read everything I could find relating to aviation. I knew flying would soon become a very important method of transporting goods and people. We were living in a vast country with great distances between most communities. Roads were unpaved and frequently not fit for travel. The aircraft was capable of rising above the deep mud and potholes, and cutting straight across the many switchbacks of those early highways. If aircraft were going to be the mode of transportation, it seemed wise for me to investigate the possibilities of becoming a pilot.
Since finishing my days at school, I had logged cottonwood while scrimping and saving every penny to eventually be able to fly. Now, at last, I had some money saved up and could finally join the Chilliwack Aero Club. The year was 1927. Membership was $25.00, still a lot of money in those days.
I took two hours of instruction with Ginger Coote in a “Golden–Eagle” and was determined more than ever, flying would be my future. It would take me another seven years before I’d really be able to start flying. I’d have to save enough money to buy an aircraft of my own.
Russell L. (Ginger) Coote, 1900-1970, was the second son of Lt-Col. Andrew Coote, commanding officer of the 47th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Russell left Chilliwack in 1916 to join his father and his older brother Ian. He enlisted in his father’s battalion as a bugler at twelve years of age and eventually fought in the trenches at fourteen. Toward the end of the war, Russell learned to fly with the Royal Flying Corp., which became the R.A.F. In 1920, he returned to Chilliwack where he sold the family farm to buy his first airoplane. He soon began flying as a commercial aviator throughout British Columbia.
Among the pilots who flew for him were Russ Baker, Sheldon Luck and Margaret Rutledge. He also partnered with Grant McConachie. During the 1930s he began regular air service to the Gold Bridge and Zeballos gold fields.
Famous for his many mercy flights, it was reported by one newspaper that Ginger Coote had saved more lives than had been lost in all B.C. aviation accidents throughout the 1930s. At the outbreak of the next war in 1939, he sold his airline to serve as a volunteer with the Canadian Air Training Plan.