Copyright Anchorage Daily News
“The Flying Wiens: A Pioneer Family’s Life in the Sky from Open-Cockpit Biplanes to Jetliners” By Richard Wien; Todd Communications, 2025; 256 pages; $35. Anyone who knows anything about Alaska aviation history knows the name Wien. The family’s patriarch, Noel Wien, is arguably the state’s most celebrated pilot, and cofounded, with his brother Ralph, Wien Alaska Airways, the first airline in the sparsely populated northernmost territory of America. Noel Wien’s life and impact have been well documented, but the family that followed in his footsteps continues to blaze pathways through the sky even now, extending the story. Richard Wien is part of the second generation of Wiens. The son of the famed pilot and his wife Ada, he was born in Fairbanks and grew up around airplanes when commercial flight was just taking off in Alaska and across the globe. As an adult he became a pilot, an executive, an airline owner, and an elder statesman of the aviation industry. Now aged 90, he’s recently published a memoir, “The Flying Wiens,” which tells the story of his and his family’s experiences as leaders in the only form of transportation that has ever made sense for much of Alaska. Wien begins with his father, who grew up on a farm in Minnesota. Like so many in his generation, Noel Wien was riveted by the sight of the earliest airplanes that appeared in the sky. By the 1920s he was a pilot, briefly working in the barnstorming circuit that thrilled onlookers during that decade. Wien came to Alaska in 1924, quickly making a name for himself as the first pilot to fly from the newly built city of Anchorage to the established settlement of Fairbanks. With this accomplishment he realized that airplanes were the future for transporting freight and passengers between Alaska’s far-flung communities. He began luring his three brothers north to join in the endeavor, and he and Ralph opened Wien Alaska in Nome in 1927. By the time Richard was born in 1935, the airline was a thriving business, and he grew up as smitten with flying as his father. What follows is, in essence, a history of the first century of Alaskan aviation as lived by the Wien family. Like so many memoirs, the best pages of the book come early. It’s not for lack of accomplishments in life, it’s just that youthful enthusiasm is always the source of the best memories. For Wien those memories surround his father’s business, where he would happily offer his services as a child just to be near the planes and pilots. His elder brother Merrill received his pilot’s license at 16, and Wien followed as soon as he reached the same age. He was so obsessed with flying that he obtained his pilot’s license early on the day of his birthday, and only later that afternoon earned his driver’s license as well. Priorities. The author doesn’t always keep his narrative in chronological order, and thus, after writing of his and his brother’s early years, he circles back to telling readers of the family airline’s development and accomplishments. In those days flying was a far more dangerous business than it is today, and the remote nature of Alaska’s landscape, coupled with no means of communication between pilots and those on the ground, made it more so. If a plane went down, it could be anywhere. And no one knew if a crash had occurred until a plane simply failed to arrive at a landing strip as expected. Lives were lost, and when not, pilots and passengers sometimes waited days before being found and rescued. Noel Wien, forever seeking to improve safety, installed an early radio system in his planes, one that was continually being improved as that technology, also fairly new, advanced as quickly as aviation did. Richard and Merrill were both working as commercial pilots as soon as they could and joined the business, where they were expected to prove their worth just as any other employee would. The airline was growing, however, and as the sons of its founder, it wasn’t long before the brothers advanced into management. What becomes clear here is that Wien was very hands-on in his style. Not in the sense of meddling, but rather, in striving to employ the best and safest pilots possible. The company preferred to hire from within, so Wien spent a lot of time training employees in the cockpit who had been chosen from among those working ground jobs. One of many results from this policy was a culture in which, during years when prejudice was often at it worst elsewhere in the territory, Alaska Natives at Wien had better opportunities for advancement than at any other airline. Wien covers the growth of the company, which serviced Alaska’s Interior and Arctic. Federal regulations at the time awarded regions and routes to individual airlines, squelching competition and restricting growth. This left mergers as the only means of expansion, so Wien Alaska joined Northern Consolidated Airlines in 1968. At this point Wien resigned from the company rather than leave Fairbanks for Anchorage, which his continued employment would have required. He was already busy with another outfit anyway. He and his brother Merrill had launched Merric, a helicopter company, in 1960, and Wien turned his attention to that operation, which itself was ultimately part of a merger with Era. One of the best chapters in the book describes rescue operations Wien and his pilots were involved in during the flood that inundated Fairbanks in 1967. In one particularly dramatic moment, a boy with a broken arm who Merrill was flying to safety snatched a woman from the rushing waters, saving her life. More exciting stories follow, and a few tragic ones as well. Along the way, Wien also served on countless boards and civic groups, and by this century had become nationally known for his contributions to commercial aviation. Mostly, however, Wien was and, at least at heart, always will be a pilot. “You are a Wien,” his supervisor once told him, “the airline needs you, so get going.” And that’s exactly what he did. [Book review: A remarkable woman keeps a long cultural tradition alive] [A fixture in Alaska’s literary community, Don Rearden has flourished as writer and teacher]
