Old Missoula

Air Forest Patrol Ready For Business [Howard Flint District Inspector 1925]

Inspector and Pilot Come by Air From Spokane Base Here.

The airplane fire patrol for district No. 1 of the forest service is ready for business and as soon as the pilots of the two planes that will be used in the area spend a few days acquainting themselves with the territory, daily patrols will be started. The patrols will continue until the hazards of dry season have passed.

Plane Reaches Missoula.

Howard R. Flint, district forest inspector, and R. G. Treng, pilot of one of the two planes that will be used, flew from the patrol base in Spokane by way of the national forests to Missoula yesterday morning. The trip, made in less than two hours’ time, is the first of a series of flights that are to be made over the territory by the pilots to acquaint themselves with the forests of the district and the landings in the territory. Flint and Treng left Missoula at 6 o’clock last night for the return trip to Spokane.

Two large De Haviland army planes equipped with Liberty motors will be used. The pilots of the machines, R. G. Treng and Nick B. Mamer, army reserve flyers, piloted their machines from San Diego, Cal. To Spokane. The trip by the Mamer plane was made in the remarkable time of 10 hours. Dr. F. A. Carpenter of Los Angeles accompanied Mamer on the trip and made 68 photographs from the air during the journey. The last lap of the trip from Portland to Spokane was made in two hours and 40 minutes with plane reaching an altitude of 6,000 feet at times. The record speed attained on the trip was 146 miles an hour.

Daily Patrol Starts.

Mr. Flint will accompany the flyers on several of the location flights during the next few days. After these preliminary flights each forest will furnish the observer for the planes when they are patrolling in that particular forest. This system is used so that the observer will be well acquainted with the forest territory and at the same time have first hand knowledge of fire conditions in the forest.

Mr. Flint said that he was able to see practically every point of interest between here and Spokane during the flight and that he had little difficulty in picking out the forest stations and lookouts in the territory. After the planes are placed on regular patrol duty, Mr. Flint will come down to earth and finish his inspection trip of the district with a 30-day horseback tour of the forests. He will return to Missoula the latter part of August.

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on July 9, 1925.

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Forester Howard Flint survived a plane crash near St. Joe, Idaho in 1928. In 1935 he was rescued while on an expedition with the National Geographic Society down the Salmon “River of No Return” in Idaho. He had suffered an attack of unknown origin which would kill him the day following his arrival back in a Missoula hospital. Pilot Dick Johnson landed at “Mackey Bar” on the Salmon River to rescue Flint and return him to Missoula.

“It was said of him that his accomplishments in both he administrative and scientific fields will stand as a monument to his devoted services.”[1] A research foundation in his name was established by the Northwest Scientific Association in 1936.