14 



Canadian Fori'slry journal, January, 1920 



FLYING SCOUTS IN FORESTRY HAVE COME TO STAY 



By Sluart Graham, who nianai>c(l ihc aviation rvorli- for the 

 Si. Maurice Forest Protective Association. 



First Summer's Experience Demonstrated Practical Value of 

 Flying Machines to Central Quebec. 



A complete rejjort of the work done by the 

 flying boats loaned by the Department of Naval 

 Affairs, Ottawa, to the St. Maurice Forest Pro- 

 tective Association, Limited, working in con- 

 junction with the Department of Lands and For- 

 ests of the Province of Quebec, has been com- 

 piled and IS of considerable interest. The 

 action of the Department of Naval Affairs in 

 making it possible to carry out this work is 

 liighly commendable. 



The work has of necessity been carried out 



along experimental lines, owing to the required 



, initiation of lumbermen into flying work and 



also tlie introduction of the flyers into the realms 



of the forester. 



The actual forest flying was materially han- 

 dicapped in many ways, and over fourteen hun- 

 dred miles were flown on two trips from Hali- 

 fax to the St. Maurice Valley. These two trips 

 were the longest cross-country journeys ever 

 accomplished by flying boats, and as landings 

 were made with equal success on ocean, lake 

 and river, it speaks very highly of this type of 

 aircraft for work in Canada where we have 

 surh a large percentage of water. 



LANDED ONCE IN STUBBLE. 



On one occasion, owing to a heavy gale in 

 combination with a "dead" engine, one of the 

 boats was forced to land m a stump-covered 

 clearing. Mr. Ellwood Wilson, one of the 

 passengers on this flight, states that the shock 

 of landii^f^ was not felt, and the paint on the 

 bottom of the boat was not even damaged on 

 contact with terra firma. Although demonstrat- 

 ing that the sturdy flying boats are as good 

 on land as water, this was not practised during 

 the season. 



Technical points in the report have been 

 omitted, but the following excerpts are of spe- 

 cial interest. 



"The machines became water-logged from 

 lying in the lake after flights, and owing to the 

 peculiar construction of the hull of the Curtiss 

 HS 2 L Flying Boat, it is impossible to remove 

 the water from certain parts without placing the 

 machine on terra firma and unscrewing drains 

 on bottom of boat. 



"On July 20th we endeavored to make a 

 flight but found the machine too water-logged 

 to leave tlie water, and as the launching track 

 was not completed until a week later, the ma- 

 chine was obliged to lie idle during that time. 



HALF-A-TON OF WATER ABOARD. 



"Owing to a last minute change in the selec- 

 tion of a base, no preparations had been made 

 for our arrival at Lac la Tortue, and the con- 

 struction of living quarters, work shop, 125 foot 

 launching track, and the necessary elaborate 

 launching cradle-trucks, was very slow work for 

 our personnel of five to perform without any 

 outside labor. However, by working from day- 

 light till dark, we managed to complete the 

 track, and on July 26th hauled the machine out 

 of the lake, when about 1,000 pounds of water 

 was removed from the hull and fins. We were 

 then able to understand why the machine be- 

 haved like a motor boat instead of an aeroplane. 



"A few days drying out put the first machine 

 in flying condition again, and on July 30th we 

 resumed our patrol work which suffered no real 

 drawback during the remaining three months. 

 We made over forty trips and could readily have 

 made more frequent trips had it been necessary. 

 However, during these last three months only 

 sixteen blazes were reported by the rangers of 

 the Association, all of which were of minor 

 importance, an area of only eight acres being 

 burnt during the whole period. Ten of these 

 fires were caused by railway locomotives, and 

 were in the majority of cases discovered and 

 extinguished by rangers following up the trams 

 on "speeders." The cheapness and efficiency of 

 this method of railway patrol will never be re- 

 placed by aircraft, although the latter may 

 quite frequently be instrumental in spotting and 

 reporting a fire from this source before the 

 "speeder" patrol. 



SPOTTING SMALL FIRES. 



"That even small fires can be spotted and 

 properly located from a distance of thirty or 

 forty miles, we have frequently been able to 

 prove. On Sept. 17th at 5.15 p.m. we noticed 

 a curl of smoke rising from a point twenty miles 

 to the south of us, between Lake Hamel and the 



