To most of us, flying is simply a fast and efficient way of getting from here to there. But it can be so much more. Accelerating across the water at the point of a sparkling vee of spray, lifting off to look down through big windows at the shining towers of a city beside a deepwater bay, skimming close over a jigsaw puzzle of islands and inlets, soaring around the ice-draped peaks and looming volcanoes that make up some of the most impressive mountains on the planet… Now �ٳ󲹳�’s flying.

That this remarkable experience can be had by simply buying a ticket on �鶹��Ƶ is due entirely to a single gust of wind which shortly before the outbreak of World War II flipped over a tiny, two-seat Aeronca floatplane on Seattle’s Lake Union. Seattle seaplane pioneer Lana Kurtzer salvaged the plane, stacked the pieces behind his shop and forgot about it until 1944 when a pair of young Navy Reserve aviation mechanics asked if he’d be willing to sell it.

The rebuilt Aeronca Model K in Bob Munro’s backyard, 1946.

Graduates of the Boeing School of Aeronautics, Reginald “Reg” Collins and Bob Munro were looking for an airplane rebuild project to hone their skills during their spare time. The fact the Aeronca was on floats was irrelevant since their post-war plan was to sell it and open a little aircraft repair shop. The agreed-on price was three hundred dollars and the restoration took a year.

In August, 1945 Collins and Munro began looking for a commercial garage to rent to house their repair shop. They found one on Green Lake Way just north of Lake Union, and then their longtime friend Jack Mines came home from flying anti-submarine planes in the Pacific and changed everything.

“Why don’t you start a business with it,” he suggested when he saw the assembled Aeronca in Munro’s backyard. “Offer flight instruction, charter flights, things like that.”

“Well, that’d be interesting,” said Collins. “ But neither one of us knows how to fly.”

“No, but I do,” said Mines, and he outlined his idea. He’d do the flying while Collins and Munro took care of the repair work. The two mechanics were skeptical but Mines’ enthusiasm finally won them over.

The first challenge was to find a place to fly the plane. Mines found it at the north end of Lake Washington, an abandoned shingle mill on a boggy mudflat in front of the town of Kenmore. The owner was willing to lease the property, so the Aeronca was disassembled, trucked to the site and reassembled. Its first flight was on March 21, 1946. Mines made several flights that day, including giving Munro his first flying lesson. As they were pulling the plane out of the water a man drove down from the highway and asked if they’d be selling flight instruction. �鶹��Ƶ had its first customer.

�鶹��Ƶ in 1948. As you can see, the abandoned shingle mill became a thriving hub.

In addition to the mill the property featured a house with a separate garage and a small building that had apparently served as a chicken coop. Collins and his wife moved into the house, the garage became the repair shop and the chicken coop was slid over next to the garage to become the company’s headquarters.

The instruction side of the business boomed almost overnight thanks to the demand from returning GIs. The forty-horsepower Aeronca was too underpowered to be an effective trainer so the company acquired a more powerful Taylorcraft. In a pattern that would be repeated time and time again they got a deal on it because the plane was heavily damaged, but Kenmore’s skilled mechanics returned it to pristine condition in no time.

A lot happened in 1946. The company’s fleet grew by several more planes as the instruction business took off. Additional instructors and mechanics were hired. But the year also saw the departure of two of the company’s founders. Jack Mines was killed when an inadvertent stall caused him to hit the trees while airdropping supplies to a search party in the Cascade Mountains. A few months later Reg Collins announced he was moving to California. Less than a year after they’d started Bob Munro was left to run the company on his own.

�鶹��Ƶ may have been propelled into existence by a gust of wind but it was accelerated down the road to success by a fish. For years Enos Bradner, an avid fly fisherman whose day job was being the outdoor reporter for the Seattle Times, had been hearing rumors about big steelhead trout that spawned in the rivers on Vancouver Island before speeding back to salt water to grow even bigger. In 1950 he decided to find out if the rumors were true, so he called Kenmore to arrange a charter flight. Munro had continued taking flying lessons after Jack Mine’s death and had become as accomplished a pilot as he was a mechanic. He agreed to fly Bradner and a photographer to Nahmint Lake deep in the mountains that run the length of Vancouver Island.

A successful fishing charter. Bob Munro (second from right) and the company Seabee.

He used the company’s Republic Seabee, a rugged, four-place flying boat. Republic only made the amphibious Seabee for two years but they proved remarkably popular, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, and by the late 1940s there were as many as thirty-six of them parked on the property.

After a day of fishing Bradner had confirmed two things. The rumors were true, and the Nahmint steelhead weren’t just big, they were monstrous. His described his experience in his next column and the phone in Kenmore’s little office began ringing off the hook with requests for charter fishing flights.

In early February, 1953, it rang with a charter request from Ketchikan, Alaska, that would lead to some of the most unique flights ever undertaken by any seaplane operator on the planet. The customer was a Canadian prospector named Tom McQuillan, and what he wanted was to be flown onto the surface of the Leduc Glacier in the Coast Range some eighty miles northeast of Ketchikan. He was convinced the mountains beside the glacier held massive deposits of copper and he was desperate to stake a claim before anyone else could get there. The air services in Ketchikan turned him down but someone suggested he call Bob Munro at �鶹��Ƶ.

“He’s a hell of a pilot,” the man said. “He’s also not the kind of guy who’ll panic if something unexpected happens.”

One of �鶹��Ƶ’s Norduyn Norsemen and the company’s Republic Seabee on during the Leduc Glacier airlift.

Munro agreed to give it a shot. Two days after his arrival in the Seabee he and company pilot Paul Garner loaded up McQuillan, his assistant and their equipment and took off for the glacier. Kenmore operated their Seabee without its external retractable landing gear, so the hull touched down smoothly on the snow-covered surface and slid to a stop. After unloading, the four men wrestled the plane around to point downhill, stomped out a short runway in front of it and Munro and Garner climbed in and took off. The flight had been a dramatic proof-of-concept that was to serve �鶹��Ƶ well for the next two and a half decades.

With his claim staked, McQuillan’s next challenge was to establish an exploratory mine to determine if the mountains did indeed hold a treasure-trove of copper. Doing this would require a permanent camp. Wall tents, support platforms, stoves, air compressors, pneumatic drills, stacks of fuel drums, even a washing machine had to be set up on the slope above the glacier. Packing all this in would take ages so it was back on the phone to Kenmore to see if they could fly it directly onto the surface of the glacier. Munro saw no reason why not although it would take a much larger plane than the Seabee to do it.

Fortunately, �鶹��Ƶ had two of them. The big Norduyn Norseman, nicknamed the Thunderchicken, was Canada’s first, purpose-built bush plane. Kenmore had acquired theirs in poor condition but the company’s mechanics soon had them in first-class shape.

At the beginning of March McQuillan put together a floating camp and moored it in Burroughs Bay, sixty-miles northeast of Ketchikan. From there it was a thirty-mile, continuously-climbing flight to the surface of the glacier. Using the Norsemen and the Seabee, Munro and pilots Paul Garner and Bill Fisk began flying in the tons of supplies and equipment McQuillan was having barged in from Canada. Every load was a challenge. Bundles of lumber were lashed to the float struts. A tractor had to be taken apart and the pieces flown in separately. The air tank for the compressors was too big to fit inside a Norseman, so it was torched in half with each half loaded to stick out the doors on either side.

When the weather cooperated and with the miners McQuillan had hired doing the unloading, each plane could make several flights a day. The record was thirteen, with Munro flying six and Garner five while Fisk flew two loads of food in the Seabee. The surface of the glacier took on the appearance of a ski slope from the tracks of the arriving and departing seaplanes.

The final flight was on April 29, and the planes headed south the next day. By midsummer McQuillan’s exploratory mine was in full swing. Backed by a mine development company in Vancouver, it proved the mountains held copper in amounts surpassing McQuillan’s wildest expectations. The success of the famous Granduc mine, which pulled copper out of the mountains until 1984, was the direct result of Bob Munro’s willingness to take on a challenge no one else wanted to tackle.

�鶹��Ƶ may have thought they were done with glaciers but the glaciers weren’t done with them. In the summer of 1968 the phone rang with another request to fly equipment and supplies to a glacier. This time it was closer, the little South Cascade Glacier in the mountains a mere seventy miles northeast of �鶹��Ƶ’s home dock.

The person on the phone was Wendell Tangborn, who’d recently been put in charge of a research station where scientists were studying the glacier’s structural zones and their behavior and how its recession might affect the region. Tangborn needed a fast and reliable way to get supplies in and data and study samples out.

Initially, the idea was to make the flights to the lake at the foot of the glacier. Using maps provided by Tangborn and the performance data for the airplanes they’d be using, Munro determined that landing and taking off from the tiny, kidney-shaped lake was possible. He also determined that once he started a takeoff he was committed to it. The lake was too small to cut the power and stop once the plane was into its takeoff run.

The two Thunderchickens had been sold off years earlier. Two years before Tangborn’s phone call, Kenmore had purchased its first de Havilland Beaver. Like the Norseman, the Beaver had been designed specifically for the Canadian bush. But instead of the Norseman’s heavy tube-and-fabric construction and truck-like handling, the Beaver utilizes lightweight, all-metal construction and it flies like a dream.

The Beaver quickly came to define �鶹��Ƶ. The company began acquiring more of them, many as Army surplus hulks. But Kenmore’s wizard mechanics turned the hulks into planes that were better than even de Havilland could have imagined. Under the guidance of service manager Jerry Rader, they increased the cabin capacity, created more comfortable seats and installed bigger windows to give passengers an even better view of the amazing geography they were flying over. The end result was what operators around the world began referring to as a Kenmore Beaver.

Munro’s first flight to the tiny lake was a success and for the rest of the summer Kenmore made at least one flight a week in support of the station. Then in October the lake froze over. The surface of the South Cascade was too uneven to land on in the summer but once the snow began to fall it was a different story. Drawing on everything he’d learned during the Leduc airlift, Munro took his favorite Beaver, N9766Z, and went up and tried it. It worked and Tangborn’s research projects could now carry on through the winter.

As dramatic as the glacier flights were, they made up just a fraction of the company’s income. The charter business had grown to include daily flights to the resorts scattered through the maze of islands that make up the lower British Columbia coast. Stops included April Point, Farewell Harbor, and Big Bay, where guides took guests out to fish the edges of the huge whirlpools that form in the narrow passes between the islands. The violent water churns up food which attracts schools of herring which in turn launched trophy-sized salmon into a feeding frenzy.

Kenmore’s growing fleet of immaculate Beavers might have been the public’s image of the company but there was a lot more to it than that. The maintenance and repair side of the business had evolved right along with the company’s airplanes. In the beginning, while Jack Mines was out giving lessons, Collins and Munro would be hard at it in the garage rebuilding engines or fixing components of customers’ planes.

�鶹��Ƶ’s first Turbo Beaver. (photo by C. Marin Faure)

In 1961 the original house, garage and chicken-coop office were knocked down and a pile driver began hammering in the supports for a combination office and hangar building. Designed and largely built single-handedly by Kenmore’s genius facilities manager, Bill Peters, the building still stands today as the company’s headquarters.

Word spreads fast in the northwest aviation community and it wasn’t long before Kenmore’s Beaver-rebuild mechanics found themselves putting together planes for operators in Alaska, Canada and even overseas. Winters began seeing planes in the hangar with names like Alaska Island Air, Taquan Air Service and Pacific Wings on their sides, flown south for an off-season overhaul.

In the spring of 1970 one of Seattle’s newspapers ran an article about �鶹��Ƶ’s South Cascade Glacier operations. That same afternoon Munro got a call inquiring if he’d be willing to do the same thing for the University of Washington’s research station on the Blue Glacier. Spilling off the summit of Mt. Olympus on the Olympic Peninsula far from Seattle’s automotive and industrial haze, the Blue was an ideal place to study weather, air chemistry, and cloud physics as well as the glacier itself. The station was perched on a ridge beside the rounded upper level of the glacier. Nicknamed the Snow Dome, it was flat enough to land on.

Munro pored over the maps and photos the university had provided. The Snow Dome was definitely long enough to land on. But was it long enough to take off from? According to the map and the Beaver’s performance figures it wasn’t. Not even close.

But Munro’s examination of the photos showed him something the maps didn’t. A narrow extension of the Snow Dome continued past the research station and spilled off the mountain in a smooth curve of ice to dive steeply into the valley below.

The only way to find out if his idea would work was to go up and try it. Compared to the South Cascade, landing on the Blue was a snap. The two researchers who’d accompanied him helped turn the Beaver around and then climbed back in and tightened their seat belts as Munro advanced the throttle to takeoff power. The plane began to accelerate but it was obvious it would never reach flying speed before it reached the end of the Snow Dome. But Munro held his nerve and kept going. Six-Six-Zulu was still way too slow when it reached the end and pitched over the edge. It was like a roller coaster, Munro said later. The plane picked up speed fast as it thundered down the slope until at an angle approaching forty-five degrees it reached flying speed. Munro eased back on the yoke and 66Z lifted off the snow and rocketed toward the floor of the valley. Resisting the urge to pull back too hard, Munro coaxed the plane out of its dive and headed for home.

Bob Munro with his beloved Six-Six-Zulu poses after a glacier landing.

�鶹��Ƶ supported the Blue Glacier station for the next seven years, ferrying everything from drums of stove oil to sensitive research instruments to the Snow Dome and hauling away the station’s empty containers and trash. And while the flights themselves became relatively routine, the dramatic pitch over the icefall on takeoff never ceased to be a thrill.

Lake Union Air Service had been around almost as long as �鶹��Ƶ, and in the early 80s a new owner decided to make it a serious contender by starting scheduled service to the most popular destinations in the San Juan Islands. Kenmore met the challenge by starting its own scheduled service, which meant that passengers could now get to and from the islands by simply buying a ticket rather than chartering an entire plane. The service was an immediate success and it was soon expanded to include destinations farther north in British Columbia.

Both companies began to struggle as the competition heated up. Something had to give and it did in 1991 when the over-extended Lake Union company found itself descending toward bankruptcy. Munro could have waited until his competitor failed altogether, but instead he made the owner a fair offer and Kenmore took over the company’s Lake Union facility as well as its lucrative route to Victoria on Vancouver Island.

�鶹��Ƶ entered the jet age in 1986 with the acquisition of a de Havilland Turbo Beaver. With a longer fuselage and a turbine in place of the standard Beaver’s piston engine, the Turbo Beaver carries more, goes faster and has significantly longer maintenance intervals. Kenmore got a good deal on theirs because someone had run it into the side of a truck and wiped out the front end. Which was fine because Jerry Rader’s plan was to replace the original 1960s-era turbine with a brand new, more powerful version that was better suited for saltwater operations. Kenmore’s Beaver shop totally rebuilt the plane and it joined the fleet in 1988. A major benefit became obvious on its very first flight. The turbine, with its large, slower-turning propeller, was noticeably quieter than the fleet’s piston-powered planes. A year later, the company added a second re-powered Turbo Beaver.

The success of the Turbo Beavers convinced Munro to approve the conversion of Kenmore’s largest plane, a ten-passenger de Havilland Otter, from piston to turbine power. Using an FAA-approved conversion kit that incorporated the same state-of-the-art turbine Rader had used in the Turbo Beavers, the end result was a plane that matched Kenmore’s needs perfectly. Today, the fleet includes ten of them.

Fifty-four years after the flight that launched �鶹��Ƶ, Bob Munro retired. His son, Gregg, became president of the company while grandson Todd Banks took over the day-to-day operations. When Seattle-based Horizon Air ended its scheduled service to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula, Banks saw an opportunity with potential. Using nine-passenger Cessna Caravans on schedules tied into the most popular arrival and departure times at Seatac International Airport, Kenmore Express began offering scheduled and charter flights between Seattle’s Boeing Field and airports on the Peninsula, in the San Juan Islands and in British Columbia.

Turbine Otter at Kenmore’s home dock. (photo by C. Marin Faure)

The enthusiastic reaction of passengers as they try to take in every detail of the maze of inlets, bays and islands passing below them did not go unnoticed by Kenmore’s pilots. Remembering his grandfather’s fascination for the country he’d flown through for so many years, Banks wondered if people would be willing to pay for the experience of simply going for a ride in a floatplane. The only way to find out was to try it, so the company initiated a sightseeing flight over Seattle. It proved so popular that Kenmore added a volcano flight that gets passengers up close and personal with Mt. Rainier and Mt. Saint Helens, and an Olympic Peninsula flight that includes a pass over Mt. Olympus and the Blue Glacier. Depending on the day’s fleet assignments, passengers may find themselves gazing down on the Snow Dome from Beaver Six-Six-Zulu, the exact same plane Munro flew on his South Cascade and Blue Glacier flights.

The magic of flying in a floatplane is you go low and slow. With big windows and a high wing, every seat offers a panoramic view. Which is exactly what you want as you look down into the steaming crater of Saint Helens or watch a pod of whales from the altitude of a soaring eagle.

Whether the objective is to experience a unique perspective above an amazing corner of the planet, add to a collection of dramatic photos and videos, or fly to a destination with its own promise of adventure, �鶹��Ƶ has spent the last seventy-five years perfecting its ability to deliver. It’s a history every passenger lives in person from the moment their plane begins to accelerate across the water.

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About the Author

C. Marin Faure was born in San Francisco, California and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. After graduating from the University of Hawaii he worked in commercial television production for eight years before moving to Seattle, Washington and joining The Boeing Company as a marketing film and video producer/director, a job that has taken him all over the world.

In Hawaii he earned his Commercial pilot’s license with Instrument and Flight Instructor ratings. After moving to Washington, he earned his seaplane rating and with his wife, Ruth,has made numerous camping and fishing flights in a float-equipped de Havilland Beaver up and down the Inside Passage between Washington and southeast Alaska. They’ve also explored the waters of Washington and British Columbia extensively by boat.

Marin began writing articles about flying floatplanes for national flying magazines and in 1984 was asked to write an instructional book on the subject. The first edition of “Flying a Floatplane” (274 pages) was published by TAB Books (McGraw-Hill) in 1985. Subsequent published books include “Success on the Step: Flying with �鶹��Ƶ” (432 pages, foreword by Harrison Ford), the story of the world’s most successful seaplane airline, and “Up From the Ashes: The Clise Family and the Shaping of Seattle” (231 pages), the story of Seattle’s most influential and successful family-owned property development company.

Marin’s beautifully written Success on the Step – Flying with �鶹��Ƶ is available through our online Gift Shop

Celebrate Kenmore’s 75th!

In honor of our 75th anniversary, we’d like to extend a warm welcome to the entire community. Please join us in celebrating August 28th, 2021 at �鶹��Ƶ Harbor in Kenmore, WA.

Click here to learn more about the event.

How an iconic seaplane and observation tower came to define the Pacific Northwest experience.

It was 1960, and the morning mist was still rising off of Lake Washington as Howard H. Wright climbed into the yellow and white Cessna 180 seaplane patiently bobbing alongside the wooden dock with pilot Bob Munro. The short flight to the San Juan Islands, about 60 nautical miles northwest of Kenmore’s Air Harbor, was the first intersection of two Seattle families that would go on to shape, and sometimes define the Pacific Northwest experience.

In fact, flying above the Puget Sound today in a �鶹��Ƶ seaplane is still the best vantage to understand how these two families, the Wrights and the Munros, influenced the Pacific Northwest — and how their descendants are still doing it today.

Laying the Foundation

Howard Wright owned a construction company that helped build the Grand Coulee Dam on the eastern side of the state in the years before World War II. Industry and population growth in the region was fueled by its construction, as were the wartime industries located in the Northwest.

The seaplane company, whose services Wright hired on his inaugural 1960 flight, was started by three friends who reunited after World War II to put their flying and mechanical engineering skills to new use.

Wright played his own part in the fate of the region when he and a group of men thought that visitors of the soon-to-be-held 1962 World’s Fair needed something remarkable to remember their visit to Seattle. His company would build one of the country’s most iconic structures: the Space Needle — a symbol for the Century 21 Exposition and America’s commitment to the space race.

Getting Started in Seattle

Four generations of Wrights have left their mark on the Pacific Northwest since the family arrived in Seattle. Howard H. Wright, whose weekly flights with �鶹��Ƶ brought him to the beautiful San Juan Islands, was from the second generation. In the Great Depression, the family had moved to Seattle and built an apartment building on Capitol Hill, a central neighborhood now frequented for its buzzy bars and highly rated restaurants. It was one of the first projects that he and his father took on together in the city.

Those regular flights to and from the San Juans in the ’60s made him a �鶹��Ƶ regular. �鶹��Ƶ had developed a reputation for safety, customer service, and reliability that was unmatched and grew over the decades. Similarly, the Wrights’ construction company continued to grow. By the 1980s when the company was sold by the Wright family, the firm was one of the largest in Washington, where a series of high-profile projects had brought the company from humble beginnings as a builder to a developer of the high rise cityscape.

Foremost among those achievements was the Space Needle.

Photo by Alex Mertz

For Wright and his son, the Century 21 Exposition was an opportunity to introduce the Pacific Northwest to the wider world and, in doing so, write a new chapter in America’s history. The 1962 World’s Fair would be held just north of Seattle’s downtown core, at the southern foot of Queen Anne Hill. To its west lay Elliott Bay and the shores of the Puget Sound. To its east was Lake Union, where �鶹��Ƶ would eventually expand.

At the time of its construction, beginning in the early ’60s, the world was under the shadow of the Cold War. A small group of developers that included the Wrights had dreams of creating a landmark that the world would remember as the symbol of the exposition. They hoped to place their creation alongside the Eiffel Tower and the Chicago Ferris Wheel, as structures that inspired generations to dream of the possibilities the future would bring.

The company, founded years earlier by the elder Wright as a small builder before moving to Seattle, had already made a name for itself when plans for the World’s Fair began. The risk they took in taking on this project paid off, though, and the Space Needle became an instant hit.

Postcards featuring the Space Needle made their way to mailboxes around the world. They still continue today, with one distinct addition — the unmistakable �鶹��Ƶ seaplane, caught mid-flight, usually in the foreground of the Space Needle.

Taking off from Lake Washington

Bob Munro, Reg Collins, and Jack Mines, had no idea what �鶹��Ƶ would become when they founded the company in 1946 at the edge of a bog in the northern corner of Lake Washington.

The three friends had simply reunited after World War II with an idea to create a seaplane business in the Pacific Northwest. With one plane and a hangar, they started making repairs and chartered flights from the then-sleepy shores of Lake Washington. They also started selling Seabees, another photogenic seaplane which, under the skillful flying of Munro and others, would make daring glacial landings while in �鶹��Ƶ’s fleet.

Though based just outside Seattle, �鶹��Ƶ grew up alongside the Northwest’s largest city and earned a reputation for hard work and safe flying. While Howard S. Wright Construction Company was at work getting the city ready for the Century 21 Exposition, �鶹��Ƶ was expanding their Air Harbor on Lake Washington.

In 1959, Bob Munro announced that Air Harbor was in a position to begin construction on a new office and shop building, built near the original hangar. Chartered flights would increase over the next few decades. During that time, the cities surrounding Seattle also grew, including Kenmore. The sleepy towns on the edge of the lake were getting busier, industries were growing, and flight service expanded.

In the ’50s, �鶹��Ƶ had also started flights to the San Juan Islands. The short flight from Air Harbor was exactly what the community was looking for when they wanted to connect with the seemingly far-flung outposts of the San Juan islands and beyond.

The ’60s and ’70s were challenging times in the Pacific Northwest. In 1971, a famous billboard asked, “Will the last person leaving Seattle turn off the lights?” Still, �鶹��Ƶ and the Wrights soldiered on, and the city bounced back.

In the ’80s, Kenmore made another expansion, this time towards the waterfront just a couple miles from the former site of the Century 21 Exposition, the Seattle World’s Fair. The company was growing, and room was to be made for expanded operations, including a seaplane terminal on Seattle’s Lake Union. They purchased the land of a competitor and opened the terminal at 950 Westlake Ave N, where Beavers, Otters and Caravans now take off and land beneath the backdrop of the Space Needle.

Reaching New Heights

In 2018, a new relationship between �鶹��Ƶ and the grandson of Howard H. Wright took root when Seattle Hospitality Group invested in �鶹��Ƶ.

Howard Wright by Mandy Mohler of Field Guide Designs

Seattle Hospitality Group was founded in 2002 by H.S. Wright III, a grandson of the men whose company shaped much of Seattle’s modern-day skyline and whose weekly flights introduced him to what would become the largest seaplane operator in the world.

As his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather did before him, this Wright also takes a personal interest in businesses that would enhance the city’s ethos of arts and culture. In the years since building the Space Needle, the construction business also built the Columbia Tower, the tallest building in the state. Though the construction business has since been sold and its headquarters moved, the company retains its original name.

For visitors to the Pacific Northwest, stops at the Space Needle and seaplane flights with �鶹��Ƶ often top their travel lists. The history of the region is intrinsically tied to these two icons, and longtime residents will often conjure the very image of the Beaver flying over Lake Union with the Olympic Mountains in the background as the perfect shot to describe the Pacific Northwest.

The partnership established in 2018 between Seattle Hospitality Group and �鶹��Ƶ is the result of a decades-long relationship between two companies and the families that shaped the Pacific Northwest.

For more than 70 years, two family-owned companies shaped the Seattle skyline and filled the sky. Their buildings and planes captured imaginations and inspired people to look up and dream higher. That legacy continues today as old partners discover new possibilities.

More About the �鶹��Ƶ Family

Sarah Feller — Operations Manager

You have a good chance of seeing Sarah at any one of �鶹��Ƶ’s three Seattle terminals. As the Operations Manager, she oversees all aspects of each location. And every location benefits from her guidance and leadership.

Jan Fields – 46 Years with �鶹��Ƶ

Jan Fields tenure began June of 1972, working as a receptionist and charter specialist during her summer vacation to help pay her way through college.

�鶹��Ƶ Seaplane Pilot Steve Bjorling

At the end of the day, whether Steve Bjorling has flown to the northern tip of Vancouver Island or the quaint dock at Roche Harbor, he’s put a smile on someone’s face. That’s what keeps this former police officer passionate about flying year-after-year.

Director of Operations, Ken VanWinkle

It’s said, one of the secrets to happiness is making your vocation your avocation. For Ken VanWinkle, Director of Operations and Pilot at �鶹��Ƶ Express, this couldn’t be truer. Flying is more than Ken’s job — it’s his passion.

An iconic fixture of the Seattle skyline, seaplanes have been landing and taking off from Lake Union since 1914.

Adventure beats through the veins of Seattle like the sound of a piston Beaver ripples across Lake Union. The call of the mountains, the beckoning of the San Juans, and the roar of the Alaskan wilderness makes those in the Emerald City natural born explorers.

For more than 100 years, Seattle seaplane pilots have been answering that call from the tranquil waters of Seattle’s downtown lake. They still do today.

Initial Flight From Lake Union

The lake welcomed its first seaplane in 1914. Hired to fly exhibition flights over the city, The initial flight was a leisurely cruise, during which Christofferson took Seattle Mayor Hiram Gill (1866-1919) on his first plane ride.

From there, Christofferson’s flights took a daring turn. He flew by night with roman candles attached to the underside of his plane. And, he flour bombed the city with 21 three-ounce flour sacks.

Boeing Makes its Mark

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In 1915, Bill Boeing built a three-bay hangar at the base of Roanoke. The hangar was used for pilot training in preparation for WWI. It was at this location (aka Boeing Model 1).

The plane was nicknamed Bluebill. It made its initial flight in June of 1916 with Boeing holding the controls. By November, Mallard (Bluebill’s brother) had been completed. Both seaplanes called the Roanoke hangar home until they were sold to New Zealand in 1918.

(. The hangar built in 1915 no longer remains, but the site is marked by s plaque located at the)

The United States Begins International Airmail Delivery

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March 3, 1919, Lake Union became the first international airmail destination in the United States. Flying a Boeing C-700 seaplane, Eddie Hubbard and Bill Boeing carried 60 letters over the border from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle.

Following the initial flight, Hubbard purchased a Boeing B-1 seaplane. He began regular delivery between Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia. Over the following eight years, Hubbard flew more than 350,000 miles between the two cities.

The B-1 returned to Lake Union in 2012 when the relocated to the former Naval Reserve Armory. Located at the southern-most tip of Lake Union, the B-1 is now suspended from the lofty ceilings as though primed to land.

South Lake Union’s Seaplane Base Established

In 1931, Lana Kurtzer relocated his business, Kurtzer Flying Service, to the southern side of South Lake Union. (Eventually, he renamed the business Kurtzen Marine and Flying Service School.) Kurtzer Flying Service was initially located at Terry Avenue North and Valley Street. The business was housed in a hangar that had originally been stationed at Pier 3 on the Elliott Bay waterfront.

Ed Davies and Steve Ellis reported in that the hangar had been towed through the locks by Vern Gorst and was eventually purchased by Kurtzer.

Kurtzer’s flying school was among the largest in the country. He trained thousands of pilots and provided transportation to remote destinations.

Sixteen years later, Kurtzer relocated to the west side of South Lake Union. Constructing a new facility,

Following Kurtzer’s death, the terminal was purchased by Lake Union Air. A mainstay in the seaplane community, Lake Union Air operated from 950 Westlake until it was acquired by �鶹��Ƶ in 1933.

Seaplanes on Lake Union Today

Today, seaplanes remain a vital part of our city’s unique character. Sharing the water with boaters and kayakers, skilled seaplane pilots take off and land from on Lake Union daily. Seattle Scenic Tours offer once-in-a-lifetime views. International flights to Victoria and the B.C. Islands allow for easy border crossing. And, quick trips to the San Juan Islands let visitors and residents get out of town in just 45 minutes.

The two most common seaplanes you’ll see on the lake are the six-passenger de Havilland Beaver and the 10-passenger de Havilland Otter. Pilots choose their landing zones based on a variety of factors, including wind and water obstructions. However, mid-day you’ll often find them approaching from the south after they’ve passed the Space Needle – creating the iconic skyline view we’ve come to love.

Interested in More Seaplane History?

The Origins of the de Havilland Beaver

Known to some as the Harley Davidson of the sky, the de Havilland Beaver’s squat-nosed appearance has a rugged handsomeness.

Six Six Zulu

It wasn’t the first seaplane �鶹��Ƶ ever purchased. It wasn’t even the first de Havilland Beaver. But Six-Six-Zulu is definitely the best-loved member of Kenmore’s fleet.

At the corner of Bothell Way and 73rd, where traffic is common and horns often honk, and are adding the finishing touches to the .

The two artists are on a tight schedule. The official ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for September 5 from 11 AM – 2 PM.

Spanning 188 feet, the mural pays tribute to Kenmore’s rich and eclectic history.

“There were definitely parts of the city’s history some people didn’t want showcased, but it was really important to us to tell the true story – the story of a place where everyone was accepted,” Gaul told me on day 80 of active painting.

At the time of our interview, more than 5,000 man hours had been poured into the project. From time-to-time, volunteers joined the ladies – including the mayor and his wife. But mostly, it was just Staci and Gaul armed with their brushes and their wit.

While these two definitely take their art seriously, they are quick to have fun. It shows in their bright color palette, their use of Northwest inspired realism, and their sense of imagination. If you watch long enough, you might even catch one of them pretending to pluck an ice cream cone from the wall.

Designed specifically to be viewed from the street, the mural features large blocks of color and images that are scaled draw the eye upward and forward. The design causes the viewing experience to change drastically based on your perspective. Pedestrians walking beside the mural are treated to small details such as a portrait here and the furry rump of a deer there. Passengers driving past enjoy a flip-book-esc view as images blend into a story. Even from the air, the mural catches your eye with bold shapes.

Among their favorite pieces is the image of a Native American woman. “For me, she not only pays homage to those who were here first, she is a representation of how this project is a collaboration. Gaul did the body and the portrait. I did the basket and the headdress. It just means a lot to me,” Staci told me.

Gaul also pointed to the shopping cart, located near the center of the mural. Like a modern day cornucopia, it honors those within the community whose homes might be on four wheels. “It makes you consider, ‘What would you put in your shopping cart?’ And �ٳ󲹳�’s really important as we think about and include every member of our community,” Gaul explained.

What’s my favorite part? The �鶹��Ƶ seaplane of course! (I might be biased.) You’ll find it located on the east end of the mural with a wingspan stretching nearly 18 feet!

Were pieces of Kenmore’s history left out? Undoubtedly, yes. For example, the city had a single jail cell in its early days. “If we’d known about it from the beginning, I’d have put Gaul inside,” Staci said.

But for the most part, the year of research and collaboration the women poured into the mural has culminated in a comprehensive – and undeniably beautiful – addition to Kenmore’s landscape.

It wasn’t the first seaplane ever purchased. It wasn’t even the first de Havilland Beaver. But Six-Six-Zulu is definitely the best-loved member of Kenmore’s fleet.

A fixed wing single-engine beauty, she came off the line in 1953. She flew with six different units including the 6600^th Air Department AMO (Air Material Overseas Unit). This was an especially appropriate beginning for a plane that would one day haul Navy torpedoes and land on remote glaciers.

Torpedo Hauling
Purchased in 1967, Six-Six-Zulu arrived at Kenmore on wheels. In those days, this was common. Most Beavers were coming from Military and Air Force bases.

Stripping Six-Six-Zulu of her hardtop landing equipment, Kenmore installed floats and a little something special she’d need for her first assignment. Joining Kenmore’s original Beaver, Six-Four-Zulu, she began transporting Navy test torpedoes.

In the ’60s, the Navy was testing torpedoes at a firing range in Canada. Once fired, the torpedoes needed to be collected and transported to the Keyport Navy Base for analysis. Prior to Kenmore’s help, the torpedoes’ trek was typically a two-day affair – including nearly three hundred miles of road, two ferry rides, and a border crossing.

The Beaver’s task was seemingly simple. Retrieve and deliver quickly. The practicality of carrying the heavy and awkward torpedoes was a different story.

Bob Munro, one of Kenmore’s founders, saw a solution. He’d mounted dozens of rowboats and canoes aboard the float struts of various seaplanes. He didn’t see any reason not to do the same with torpedoes.

In order to carry the torpedoes, she was equipped with a pair of racks designed by Munro; Bill Peters, Kenmore’s fabrication genius; and Navy personnel. A special crane designed to fit around the edge of the Beavers’ wings was used to heave the heavy and awkward shells. But the payoff was worth it. The Beavers cut the two-day transport to a couple of hours.

The Bond Between a Plane & Her Pilot
Six-Six-Zulu was much more than a test weapon transport. She formed a special bond with Munro. While she’d take a spin with other pilots from time to time, her almost exclusive relationship with Munro was well known among the Kenmore staff. If Munro was scheduled for a Beaver flight, he and Six-Six-Zulu would be spending the day together.

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[Munro] knew every one of [Six-Six-Zulu’s] quirks and how it would handle in virtually any situation. The engine and flight instruments in the panel simply confirmed what he felt through the seat, saw out the windshield, and heard in the rush of air past the fuselage and in the thunder of the engine (341).

It was a relationship that served them both well.

Glacier Landings
Just a year after flexing her carrying capabilities, Munro asked Six-Six-Zulu to test her durability and dexterity.

Research scientist Mark Meier was studying South Cascade, a small glacier just 75-miles northeast of Seattle. At the time, South Cascade was just two miles long and half a mile wide. Compared to the other cliff-hanging monstrosities nearby, it was a pussycat. Its mild slopes provided a relatively easy to traverse terrain. It was getting there that posed some problems.

The small glacier was surrounded by rows of razorback ridges. The eastern wall of its narrow, north-south valley was dominated by Mt. LeConte and Sentinel Peak. South of the glacier, a pyramid of rock towers, known as The Lizard, topped out at 7,339 feet. At the glacier’s foot, a lake bent around the base of a ridge, escaping down a tiny stream.

The hike in was treacherous, especially for scientists lugging heavy and awkward cases of delicate instruments. Supporting the project by air was a logical choice. It was logical, except for the fact that the carrying capabilities of a helicopter were limited and arriving by seaplane was considered downright crazy.

Meier called every seaplane owner in Seattle to see if they’d make the trip. By the time he called Kenmore, he was used to hearing, “No.”

It took a lot of careful planning and an immense amount of skill, but Munro and Six-Six-Zulu made it to the glacier. During the first flights, they landed on the lake at the base of the glacier. But when the lake froze over, Munro was not deterred.

“I’ll come in over the lake and then head right up the glacier. I’ll touch down where the surface is pretty level,” Munro reasoned.

And �ٳ󲹳�’s just what he did. Munro flew Six-Six-Zulu onto the snow-covered ice, delivering vital supplies and picking up the collected samples.

The Kenmore Restoration
At 60-plus, many a working stiff would at least be talking about retirement. Six-Six-Zulu is still an active member of Kenmore’s fleet. And, she will be for years to come. That’s the beauty of de Havilland Beavers and the Kenmore restoration program.

While the last Beaver came off the line in 1967, like-new Beavers are coming out of the �鶹��Ƶ maintenance shop on a regular basis.

Kenmore’s world-renowned maintenance crew has earned an impeccable reputation among aviation enthusiasts. Their overhauled Beavers are often referred to as “Kenmore Beavers.”

The nickname is duly earned. The hundreds of modifications developed by Kenmore over the years have not only improved performance and customer satisfaction, but helped equip the planes to handle changing technologies.

Six-Six-Zulu alone has undergone 55 separate modifications. More than once she’s gone into the machine shop for a complete overhaul and restored. Tearing a plane like Six-Six-Zulu apart and putting her back together like new is no small undertaking.

During her 1999 restoration, nearly 7,700 new parts were installed. The process took almost 1,963 hours. If it had been a one-man job, it would have taken a mechanic practically a full year to complete.

She is old to be sure. But she’s in great shape and Kenmore’s going to make sure she stays that way.

Facts & Figures
Tail Number: N9766Z
Manufacture’s Serial Number: 504
L-20 Serial Number: 1283
U.S. Military Registration Number: 52-6121
Gross Weight: 5,600 pounds
(Fully fueled + max carrying capacity)
Useful Load: 2,016.7 pounds
(Available weight for fuel, passengers & baggage)
Tank: 828 Pounds