Famed Alaska aviator flies west

Famed Alaskan pilot Merrill Wien passed away Jan. 8, 2023. He was 92.

Merrill was born April 4, 1930, to Noel and Ada Wien and into a famous flying family in Alaska. He inherited his love of aviation and had a long flying career, according to his obituary.

He flew round engine 1930s-era bush planes, World War II trainers, bombers, and transports in the Air Force, and airliners later as a pilot for Pan Am and Wien Air Alaska. He ushered in the jet age to the 49th state and later flew wide-body aircraft all around the world, according to his family.

Merrill embraced all of aviation. To fly was what he wanted to do ever since the days of sitting in his classroom and watching airplanes land at Weeks Field in Fairbanks. He could hardly wait for school to get out so he could run to the airport. By the time he was 16, he even had the opportunity to fly borrowed airplanes on his lunch break. Merrill’s days of flying for a living couldn’t come soon enough, his family relates.

And it came quickly. While taking a break from flying for Wien to attend the University of Washington in his early 20s, Merrill was asked if he’d like to fly for Pan Am out of Seattle. He jumped at the chance, even though he knew he could be drafted now that he wasn’t in school. Soon he found himself flying the DC-4 on trips to Hawaii. He thought it couldn’t get better. It wouldn’t last long though.

While at Pan Am, Merrill was drafted into the Army for the Korean War. He wanted to fly, so he enlisted in the Air Force. Because he was two weeks short of his degree, he wasn’t eligible for flight training, even though he had been flying commercially in large transport category airplanes. He eventually found a way into the cockpit and went through Air Force primary training and eventually found himself as an aircraft commander in the C-119 Flying Boxcar in a top secret reconnaissance effort to photograph Russia. It turned out to be a harrowing assignment – catching balloons out of the air and from the water using a hook from the back of the airplanes. Those years in the military turned out to be some of the most difficult flying of his career.

After getting out of the service, Merrill had offers to come back to either Pan Am or work at the airline his father had started. He chose to stay in Alaska and fly for Wien. Flying for Wien continued the adventure as he found himself occasionally landing a DC-4 on ice islands just shy of the North Pole instead of the tropical islands of Hawaii.

He never regretted his decision to return to Wien. He loved flying the DC-3, C-46, Lockheed Constellation, and Fokker F-27 out of Fairbanks and then the Boeing 737 and 727 from Anchorage and Seattle well into the 1980s before the airline was liquidated by a corporate raider.

While at Wien, he and his brother saw an opportunity to use B-25s to fight forest fires and shortly after brought helicopters in their operation. They, along with Doug Millard and Stan Halverson, started a company called Merric and built it into a success before it merged with Era Helicopters.

Merrill finished his airline career with a charter company operating the Lockheed L-1011.

Upon reaching the mandatory retirement age for the airlines, he went to work for his friend Lowell Thomas Jr., offering sightseeing flights over Denali, as well as working as a test pilot for the Soloy Corporation in Olympia, Washington. Later Merrill flew freight in a C-46 out of Fairbanks for Evert’s Air Cargo as a “retirement job.”

His hobby on days off usually involved flying of some sort. He took the family on fishing trips out of Anchorage, and over the years acquired a number of World War II aircraft and brought them back to active flying status, including two B-25s, a T-6, P-38, Stearman, and Grumman Widgeon.

Merrill also volunteered as an instructor pilot with the Commemorative Air Force, flying its B-29 “FiFi” to airshows across the country for seven years and performing check rides for other pilots in all types of warbirds as a designated FAA examiner.

Merrill also became involved in the flying community in the Seattle area where he and his wife Barbara have lived since the mid 1980s. He managed to complete his career with many thousands of hours of accident free flying.

Merrill and former wife, Kathy had three children, Kimberlee, Kurt, and Kent, while living in Fairbanks and Anchorage. Later he married Barbara and helped raise her two children, Eric Guina and Suzanne Guina Sagiao. They were married in Seattle and have been together for 40 years.

He is survived by his wife Barbara, his brother Richard and wife Sally, as well as his five children and six grandchildren.

A celebration of his life is planned for later this spring in Seattle.