Alexander MacKay Sutherland

Alexander Mackay 'Mickey' Sutherland was born in Edmonton, Alberta, on December 30, 1910, and educated there. In the fall of 1927 he joined the Edmonton and Northern Alberta Aero Club and received flight instruction from W.R. 'Wop' May and M. 'Moss' Burbidge. He obtained his Private Pilot's Licence in December of 1929 and his Air Engineer's Licence in 1931.

He was employed by Spence McDonough Air Transport as an Air Engineer in the summer of 1931, operating from their base at Fort McMurray, Alberta, into the Northwest Territories, northern Manitoba, and Ontario. He participated in many flights north, as far as Coppermine on the Arctic Ocean, and Great Bear Lake, delivering prospectors and supplies.

During one of these trips in 1933, Sutherland and pilot Bill Spence were landing their Fairchild CF-AAO at a camp on the Camsell River in a heavy overcast. They spotted the so-called runway marked on both sides with spruce boughs, but in the whiteness, they could not see snow piled in 3 - 4 foot (1 m) drifts. On impact, the undercarriage broke off and the propeller was badly damaged. They managed to jack up the aircraft, and with great ingenuity, Sutherland rebuilt the undercarriage, and repaired the propeller by sawing six inches off one tip to make it match the damaged one, all in -50°F (-46°C) weather.

Early in 1934 Sutherland joined Canadian Airways Limited in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he worked as air mechanic for pilot Z. Lewis Leigh, operating out of their Fort McMurray base and north as far as Great Bear Lake. Together they made particularly difficult trips to Windy Lake in the Northwest Territories with prospectors, followed by many loads of supplies. They were then sent to Great Bear Lake to operate their aircraft on skis until they could fly out on floats in June. On one occasion, Sutherland made a difficult change-over from skis to floats on a stony beach.

Sutherland teamed up with many well-known bush pilots who operated out of Fort McMurray, including 'Wop' May, Archie McMullen, C.H. 'Punch' Dickins and Rudy Huess. While on one flight with May, he noticed movement in one of the upper cylinders of the engine. An emergency landing was made, and Sutherland carried out a cylinder change, including studs, which allowed them to return to base.

Canadian Airways' Chief Pilot Walter Gilbert asked him to move to their Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, base, as Chief Mechanic. On one occasion in 1936, in what was planned to be the last trip before freeze-up, Sutherland was in a float-equipped Fairchild with pilot Bill Windrum when they ran into a blinding snowstorm on their way to Goldfields, Saskatchewan. They landed on a lake near Lake Athabasca, but when they awoke in the morning, they found about six inches (15 cm) of slush on the surface of the lake, the heavy snowfall continuing, and the temperature dropping rapidly to -30°F (-33°C). The floats were beginning to freeze into the ice on shore. They managed to free the floats and took off from the ice as quickly as possible.

On another occasion the oleo-leg to fuselage fitting on a Lockheed Vega was seriously damaged by a snow-covered rock during a ski equipped take-off from Lac la Ronge. He managed to make a good repair using a welding outfit and some metal straps that were flown in from the base.

Sutherland's bush-flying career ended in the fall of 1937 when he began a long career with Trans-Canada Airlines. He was involved in establishing sub-bases and line stations and assisted in the design of hangars and shops. He became Director of Maintenance and Overhaul, and from 1940 to 1945, he assisted in the maintenance and overhaul of aircraft and components for Air Training Command.

In February 1953, Sutherland joined Slick Airways, a freight airline, in Burbank, California, as Director of Engineering and Maintenance. He was hired by Douglas Aircraft where his responsibility was to help design the DC-9 for low maintenance requirements. He traveled around the world in connection with the DC-9 and DC-10. He retired from Douglas Aircraft in 1975, after forty-eight years in aviation. He died on February 28, 1993.

Air Engineers in the north were famous for their ingenuity in repairing broken aircraft. Sometimes repairs were made from materials found on shore or at a prospector's camp. Occasionally materials would be found among the supplies being flown to a customer, as on the trip when Sutherland used a mining company's forge and some steel runners to repair a badly damaged landing gear.

Alexander Mackay 'Mickey' Sutherland was inducted as a Member of Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1991 at a ceremony held in Edmonton, Alberta.