Will Rogers

"We are here just for a spell and then pass on . . .

So get a few laughs and do the best you can.

Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead."

These words still ring true today.

Alaska recently marked the anniversary of the death of Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post who died on Aug. 15, 1935 just outside Barrow, Alaska in a plane crash while surveying a mail-and-passenger air route from the West Coast to Russia.




Wiley Post,

Will Rogers

Memorial


Barrow, Alaska




Will Rogers the humorist, philosopher, and writer accompanied his friend and world famous pilot, Wiley Post on this adventure. Funded by the airlines, Post began to assemble a hybrid plane built from two wrecks. The low-wing monoplane consisted of a Lockheed Orion fuselage and long wings from a Lockheed Explorer. He installed a 550 HP Wasp engine, and oversize 260 gallon gas tanks. He planned to add pontoons, to enable landing in the many lakes in Alaska and Siberia.

Rogers visited Post frequently at the Lockheed airport in Burbank where the strange beast took shape. Rogers called the red-and-silver plane Aurora Borealis, but others called it "Wiley's Orphan" or "Wiley's Bastard." Post insisted that it didn't have or need a name, just a number. When the pontoons he had ordered did not arrive, he had a set installed that were designed for a much larger plane.

After a test flight in late July, 1935, Post and Rogers left Seattle in the unique plane in early August. Rogers commented on the huge pontoons, but Post dismissed his concerns. Their itinerary: Seattle - Juneau, Alaska - Dawson City, Yukon Territory - Aklavik, NWT - Matanuska Valley, Alaska -Fairbanks, Alaska - Point Barrow, Alaska.

We miss these men for their sense of humor, adventure, and their search of the unknown.

May everyone continue their search . . . for the knowledge it brings . . .

and the ability to seek out new things, adventure, or a full life.


Ice

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