More on Snow planes.  A number of guys had them on the prairie.  They didn’t work as well in the hills — no brakes and too many things to hit.

Manvil Sebelius had one in the 50’s.  I think that is how he lost a couple of fingers — not sure what happened but the prop hacked them of.  Somebody said he found them in his mitten.

Gary Pigeon had one he built himself.  Tried to build one form an old VW body but it was too heavy.  So he went to sheet aluminum and conduit.  The last one he built had a 125 HP engine.  He and Russell hunted rabbits and fox for a couple winters.  I remember he at one time had a 2 ton grain truck full of rabbits — It was the middle of the winter and they were frozen solid.  We all remember Russell as being a “pedal to the metal” guy and it didn’t much matter what he drove.  Same with that snow plane–he drove and Gary was the gunner.  Gary would pop open the hatch above the back seat, stand up and fire away.  I drove for him a few times.  The trick for hitting the target was to let up on the gas when the hatch popped open.  The plane would float on the back skis instead of pounding you with a  lot of pressure on the front ski.  The problem was ejecting shells that went through the prop.  They would knock the leading edge off and the engine would vibrate like crazy.  Gary’s temporary fix?  Grab the vice grip and break off a similar size chunk on the other blade. and if it worked ok — keep hunting.  One Sunday we bagged so many rabbits that we had to swing by his place to unload ——- three times.

After breaking the prop with shells a few times Gary went up to some place in Canada with a tape measure and notebook and took the dimensions from a machine that would cut props from a model.  Then he came home and built a machine from the drawings.  He would put a laminated piece of hardwood in the machine, turn it on and come back in an hour or so, flip the wood over and cut the other side.  Then some final sanding and balancing, a coat of varnish and he was ready to hunt.

I remember John Bedard heading south along # 3 one day in his Pontiac.  Gary told me to floor the pedal and the race was on.  We had about 3 miles of soil bank and the ditches we full of snow.  I don’t recall how fast John said we were going, but it was way past stupid and approaching death wish.  Good thing we had a good half mile to coast it down.

Somebody once said that Emery Carbonneau was building one with the external fuel tank from some military plane, but I don’t know what happened with that.

Allen

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Gary and Friends

Reading Floyd’s and Tim’s comments about snowplanes really caught my
attention! Although they were abandoned from use in the late sixties,
some have survived. State laws prohibiting hunting from a moving vehicle
basically brought about their demise. The other factor was the invention
of the snowmobile which kind of took the place of the snowplane for snow
travel. I always liked these homemade machines and about 15 years ago I
found two of them that were for sale, so I made a deal and bought them.
I was invited to a snowplane rally in 1995 at Tolna, ND, where other
guys with this same interest were gathered. We had a cross country ride
for many miles and then a chili feed and refreshments on our return. It
was one of the most nostalgic and fun days I have had for many years. We
formed a group we called the Prairie Snowplaners and have had rallies,
annually, up until the last two years when there hasn’t been enough
snow. Since then I have bought several more snowplanes and parts. If any
one is interested, I have a couple VHS tapes from past rallies I would
share.
Floyd wrote about the Renault car body they used for one sled. John
Boguslawski and I  asked Curt Halvorson what he was going to do with the
chassis, [ engine, transmission, and steering, etc. ], Curt gave it to
us! We came up to our farm and got a Model T frame off a discarded hay
rack and built a “dune buggy”. We actually scared ourselves once and
THEN built a rollcage. We painted it pastel yellow with house paint and
had quite a rig! Floyd, if I remember correctly, didn’t you break some
ribs or something while hunting in the Renault-bodied snowplane? I seem
to remember something about that, could be wrong! I have attached a
couple pictures taken of my snowplane taken at one of the rallies.
Thanks Gary!