GETAWAYS

| SIKORSKY WEEKEND | Summer camp We find III in northern Maine

BY JULIE SUMMERS WALKER PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS ROSE

78 | AOPA PILOT March 2016 www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 79 IGOR SIKORSKY III sits on the dock at Bradford Camps on Munsungan Lake in northern Maine. That’s his 1968 Cessna 172 on floats behind him (right). Visitors relax on Adirondack chairs overlooking the lake (below).

eep in the woods of Maine, the grandson of one of the most loving man who led a charmed life. During his fireside talks in the influential aircraft designers hosts “Sikorsky Weekend” sporting camp lodge, with a massive moose head and equally massive each year, telling tales of his grandfather, Russia before the deer head overlooking the room, the entertaining younger Sikorsky DBolshevik revolution, and the early days of design—and shares his grandfather’s years in Russia, the construction of the four- taking visitors seaplane flying and fishing. Meet Igor Sikorsky III. engine Le Grand for the czar, his early years in the United States as a Sikorsky and his wife, Karen, run the 100-year-old Bradford nearly penniless immigrant with big ideas, the flying boats, Camps on the shores of Munsungan Lake, a four-mile-long body of and life as a test pilot building for United Aircraft (later pristine water that is home to trout, salmon, and perch. Bradford is ). Rich with original photographs, drawings, a traditional sporting camp, with eight waterfront log cabins—the and correspondence, the experience is truly a taste of history. only inhabited structures in this area of the North Maine Woods. Bradford Camps is located at the center of this 3.5-million-acre GETTING THERE. Bradford Camps shares history with the early natural wonderland, where moose, bears, deer, beavers, eagles, and fishing camps frequented by gentlemen travelers of the late eigh- ospreys are the citizenry. teenth century. That was an era when men of means would pack To get here, one can travel across rugged logging roads for trunks full of clothing and life essentials and travel by train, boat, several hours or, more intelligently, by seaplane. Sikorsky will pick and eventually horse-drawn carriages into the woods to hunt, fish, you up in his Cessna 172 on floats in Bangor—or veteran Maine sea- and commune with nature—a Hemingwayesque version of life. plane pilot Jim Strang, who operates Katahdin Air Service, can fly Yet the life that the younger Sikorsky has made here belies that you in his 206. vision. These are family cabins in an area that Sikorsky hopes to The leisurely Sikorsky Weekend is highlighted by Sikorsky’s talks keep pristine and as close to nature as possible. There’s no Wi-Fi about his grandfather. Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky made the helicopter in the cabins; certainly no TV, phone lines, or even electric lights. viable, and the younger Sikorsky knew his grandfather as a gentle, You get your illumination from gaslights you strike yourself—there are matches at each light—or you go to sleep and wait for the sun. And what a sleep it is. Quiet as only a place so removed from civ- ilization can be; the woods crack with sounds of (hopefully) small If you go critters, waves lap the shore of the lake, and wind rustles the leaves in Sikorsky Weekend will be held July 15, 16, the trees. Birdsong heralds the start of day. And the bell for breakfast. and 17, 2016. Plan to arrive midafternoon on Guests at Bradford Camps eagerly await that breakfast bell. Friday and depart midmorning on Sunday, There is a private chef for the camps: Tiffany Craig, who loves to although the Sikorskys will welcome you use native foods. So there are blueberry pancakes (this is Maine, at other times—just not after dark. In fact, after all) and real maple syrup. If everyone is lucky, one of the other the Sikorskys’ driving directions include campers has caught perch or salmon in the lake—or flown out to dire warnings about driving after dark, car- other, more remote lakes and brought back the catch—and Craig will rying spare tires, and not relying on your fry the fish for breakfast. Sikorsky and his wife greet everyone with GPS. Bradford Camps is located in the Allagash region of a hearty good morning and suggestions on how to spend the day. northwestern Maine, north of Baxter State Park in Township T8 Many of the guests have flown in by seaplane, so they will spend R10. The nearest town is Ashland, Maine, two hours south by com- the day taking off and exploring the other remote lakes and deep mercial logging roads. “Your cellphone will not work beyond Ashland,” Sikorsky warns. There is a road-use fee of $40. Katahdin Air Service flies out of Millinocket and charges between $200 and $350 per per- son (www.katahdinairservice.com). Use frequency 122.85 MHz for Bradford Camps Seaplane Base (ME3) . Cost of the weekend is $449 per person, double occupancy. This includes meals, lodging, and the full use of all facilities. Throughout Sikorsky Weekend, the aviation library in the lodge is open for all, and photos, videos, books, and artifacts are on display. Lectures and slideshows are presented after dinner for approximately two hours depending on questions. Igor Sikorsky III is the main presenter, although his father has attended on previous weekends. For more information, visit the website (www. bradfordcamps.com) or email ([email protected]).—JSW

80 | AOPA PILOT March 2016 www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 81 82 | AOPA PILOT March 2016 OLD SIGNAGE and other interesting artifacts from the camps’ history are collected and on display in Sikorsky’s work cabin (left). Eight guest cottages line the lakeshore (below).

woods here. They may see moose swimming in the streams and rivers. Bear sightings also are possible. TRAVEL TIP We are entertained by a couple who have brought their grand- daughters to the camps for a week. They tell a tale of coming up here Packing list years ago, and a young bear swimming out to their seaplane and Bradford Camps is located in the backwoods of Maine. Most grabbing onto the strut—as if begging to be taken back to civiliza- of Maine isn’t known for high fashion and especially not here. tion with them. The bear had been one of several raised in captivity L.L.Bean is most likely your store of choice for this trip. after its mother was killed, and the woman must have reminded the • Rain gear and boots. If it rains while you’re here, it’s going to get bear of the human who raised him. Wagging the wings, the pilot muddy. Very muddy. knocked the bear off the strut and dropped him into the lake. The • Flashlight. Matches are provided to light the propane lamps in the granddaughters find this tale more fascinating than the absent TV. cabins, but that “lovely glow” from the lamps isn’t enough to read by There are kayaks and fishing boats. A guide will take you on the or—yes, I’m saying it—apply makeup under. • A good book. Very quickly you’ll be so relaxed all you’ll want to do lake or into the woods: Chad Rozelle and Josh Collins are guides is settle in to the rocking chair on your cabin’s front porch and read. who live at the camps and know the area intimately. Rozelle has There are a lot of interesting books in the lodge for your use. worked with the Sikorskys for more than 20 years. Both help stock • Clock. If you care about the time, you’ll need a battery-operated clock. the cabins with essentials, such as ice from the ice house. You need However, Karen Sikorsky will ring the bell for breakfast, so that’s a good to bring your own beverages, but the ice is native—it’s chopped from wake-up call. Use of the camp’s satellite phone is $1 per minute. the lake in March or April and stored in sawdust in the ice house. It • Warm clothes. The evenings are cool. There are ample blankets on will stay cold all summer and there will be ice left over. the beds, but you’ll want something warm to sleep in. • BYOB. The camps do not have a liquor license but you are welcome HELICOPTERS AND HISTORY. During most of the seven-month sea- to bring anything you’d like to drink—from sodas to beer and wine and son at Bradford Camps, Sikorsky is camp leader, hunting guide, the stronger stuff. Your ice chest will be filled daily on your porch. Igor repairman, and escort. But this weekend, usually in July, he sets Sikorsky’s favorite soda is the Maine staple—Moxie. Regular guests like to mix it with rum for the “Munsungan cocktail.” —JSW aside his chores and takes on a role that isn’t particularly comfort- able for him—that of lecturer, entertainer, and historian. He sips a little vodka from his coffee mug for liquid courage. aircraft until he was nearly 30. And he learned to fly only because He needn’t worry about his audience. They want to know every- he and Karen needed a way to get to their beloved camps more thing he can tell them about his famous grandfather, the legendary easily than the overland trek. She wasn’t thrilled at first but, as he company—and, by the way, why is the grandson of the founder of told her, “You’re not going to tell Igor Sikorsky he can’t learn to fly.” a multibillion-dollar industry squirreled away in a fishing camp? That’s as much bravado as you’re going to get from Sikorsky. He The later bit of information is a doozy: Igor Sikorsky III has clearly inherited his grandfather’s knack for invention as well as his never flown in a helicopter. In fact, he did not learn to fly fixed-wing simplicity—this is why the younger Sikorsky isn’t a billionaire on

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 83 HIS GRANDFATHER’S original helicopter license and a letter from Helen Keller are among Sikorsky’s historic AVIATION HISTORY SITES collection. Sikorsky’s first helicopter test flight (below). Note the ever-present fedora the elder Sikorsky See the homes and sites of aviation greats always wore—even when flying. The facility in Stratford, , is open to visitors, including the Igor Sikorsky memorial office. You can sit at his desk—and try on the fedora. a much-more-accessible private island. Igor Sikorsky made viable Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. the helicopter in America, but when he was approached by United Five landmarks and a historic district illustrate Ohio’s avia- Aircraft for his designs, he asked only for a salary—and for the guar- tion heritage—the Wright Cycle Co. building, Hoover block, anteed salaries of the other Russian immigrants who had helped Huffman Prairie Flying Field, 1905 Wright Flyer III, Hawthorn him build his helicopter. “He was in debt for most of his career,” Hill, and the Paul Laurence Dunbar State Memorial. the younger Sikorsky says. www.nps.gov/daav Sikorsky escaped Russia before the Russian Revolution because, National Memorial is located in Kill as an inventor for the czar, he would have been considered a noble. Devil Hills, North Carolina. A visitor center, Wright Flyer rep- That didn’t end well for most. He came to the United States alone, lica, and reproductions of the 1903 camp buildings are on site. preparing the way for his wife and daughter. But soon after he www.nps.gov/wrbr arrived, he received a Dear John letter from his wife. She’d met The Navy’s Lakehurst Historical Society in New Jersey, someone else and was staying in Russia—but their daughter was on was home to the rigid airships and blimps of the late 1930s. It a ship, bound for America. is also the site of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. www.nlhs.com Sikorsky later remarried and had four more children, all sons. Visit Charles A. Lindbergh’s boyhood home on the Igor III is the son of the third son. Old photographs show a respect- Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota. Try out the Spirit of able and obviously well-to-do family. But Sikorsky did not forget his St. Louis flight simulator. www.charleslindbergh.com humble beginnings in the United States, where he and his workers Stinson Field in San Antonio, Texas, is the second oldest created blades for his helicopter designs from metal slats left over continuously operating airport in the United States, started by from the war’s hospital cots. He also was a deeply religious man the flying Stinson family. www.texasairmuseum.org who, toward the end of his life, wrote books about his spiritual jour- Wilbur Wright trained the first military aviators at College ney—and one about his interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. Park Airport in Prince George’s County, Maryland. College “My grandfather had a feeling of destiny,” Sikorsky tells the rapt Park is the oldest continuously operating airport in the nation. listeners as a mouse scurries across the lodge floor. “His belief was www.collegeparkaviationmuseum.com that this life is a minor stepping stone in the evolution of our souls.” Before they were Red Tails pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen One visitor for Sikorsky Weekend can barely contain his joy at trained at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. The Tuskegee being here. He clutches a book that he found as a young man, which Airmen National Historic Site is adjacent to the 5,000-foot- was signed by Igor Sikorsky. He’s had it signed by Igor Jr. and now runway general aviation airport. www.nps.gov/tuai wants the grandson to sign it. Peter Curry is a New York City fire- Visit the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum (below) in fighter who was profoundly affected by a biography about Sikorsky. Atchison, Kansas. www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org He read it when he was a teenager and has been enamored of the Wichita—the Air Capital of the World—has the Kansas inventor ever since. He has been to the Sikorsky Aircraft facility in Aviation Museum. www.kansasaviationmuseum.org Stratford, Connecticut, and visited the memorial office that is still The Armstrong Air and Space Museum is in Wapakonta, there. “I sat in his chair but didn’t touch his hat,” Curry remembers. Ohio, the hometown of Neil Armstrong—the first man to walk Most photos of the era show Sikorsky wearing a stylish fedora on on the moon. The museum features the Gemini VIII spacecraft, the test flights. “I wish I’d touched the hat.” Armstrong’s space suits, and a moon rock. www.armstrong Curry’s wife, Ellen, is a banker. The couple lives in Queens. She is museum.org the one who found out about Sikorsky Weekend and proudly boasts WEB www.aopa.org/destinations that her husband knows “everything” about the inventor. They both thoroughly enjoy this step away from civilization—although Curry walks the entire shore while his wife kayaks the massive lake, mak- ing sure she stays safe. “He was working September 11,” she confides. He doesn’t elaborate. The elder Sikorsky lived to see the first spacewalk and meet Neil Armstrong. But the younger Sikorsky thinks his grandfather would have been most gratified by the fact that his helicopters are used for rescue operations. Helicopters were his first love, although he designed fixed-wing aircraft in the United States, most notably a fly- ing boat. “He always believed the helicopter would have its greatest achievements in rescuing people,” the younger Sikorsky says. “That would be the verification of his dream.” AOPA

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