Ira’s History

 

Ira Bortles’ Flying History

Private Pilot License Number 11469, granted 15 October 1929

 

 

Born in December 1909 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Bortles moved to northeastern Colorado in 1917. He attended the Curtiss Wright Flying School in Denver, Colorado, soloing in October 1929, in a Challenger Fledgling, with Ray Wilson his instructor. Receiving a limited commercial pilot rating in April 1930, Ira barnstormed in a Hisso Eaglerock. He then flew with the Clinesmith Flying Circus in South Dakota and Minnesota in a Challenger Robin during the summer of 1931. In 1932 he barnstormed in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas in his Robin.

In 1933 Ira instructed in an 0X5 Long Wing Eaderock Nebraska and Colorado in 1933. Responding to new opportunities, he flew an Axelson Travelair and a Kinner Bird out of Laramie, Wyoming during 1934-35. For the next two years, Ira contracted with The US Weather Bureau to fly daily weather flights to 17,000 feet with a Wright J-6-7 Travelair 4-D.

For the period 1936 to 1939, Ira did aerial mapping with Wallace Aerial Surveys in Spokane, Washington for the U.S. Government. Flying Stinsons and 71 Fairchilds, he mapped Missouri, Iowa. Colorado. Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Washington.

In 1938 he was commissioned a 2nd and then a 1st Lieutenant in the 116th Observation Squadron in Washington. He was also in the Air National Guard in Spokane. Washington. He was flying 0-38s, C-47s and BC1A.

In July 1939 Ira joined Northwest Airlines, retiring in December 1969. During his career with Northwest, Ira flew domestic, Hawaiian and Orient routes – with 3 years in mainland Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Canada on contract to the ATC in support of the US Northern WWII program during 1942-44. The NWA aircraft. Ira has flown were the Lockheed Electra 10-A, Constellation 1049; the Douglas DC-3, DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, DC-8; the Boeing 377, 707 (720-320); the Martin 202; and the Curtiss. Wright C-46.

 

Wings Folded

The Seattle Times
Sunday 7, 1969 by Marjorie Jones

Mercer Island Pilot Retires After 30 Years with Airline

The final Northwest Airlines flight of the old barnstormer, Ira Bortles, hardly could have have been more dramatic, he said.

As he was touching down at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport after a flight from the Orient, the fire trucks were called out and all other emergency procedures followed. It might have been staged but it wasn’t.

“It was a real emergency.” Bortles chucked as he relaxed at his home at 6753 W. Mercer Way, Mercer Island.”We lost hydraulic fluid in the utility system and it called for emergency procedure.”

It was a safe landing and added to Bortles” perfect record after 30 1/2 years as a pilot for Northwest Airlines.

” I never hurt a passenger, although I once had to squirt carbon dioxide on an unruly drunk, and I’ve never had to bailout,” he said.

BORTLES’ flying career was inspired by the Lindberg flight in 1927 and goes back to 1929 when he graduated as a member of the first class in a school operated by Curtis Wright in Denver.

The 50 hours of instruction cost $1,300. Bortles worked day and night to help his father get in his crop at Haxtun Colo., to get the money. Then he had a job with rubber firm in Denver, arising at 4 a.m. to get in his flying hours before work.

” I was down to 145 pounds, but it was worth it,” he said. “I’ve done what I wanted to do all my life.”

He recalled the simple navigation techniques of early day flying.

” I used a road map and if I got lost I’d fly over a railway station, get the name from it and go on from there,” he said.

Bortles did stunt flying for a “flying circus” and was a wather pilot in Spokane. He then bought a plane with a downpayment of $500, mostly borrowed from a friend.

HE DID aerial surveys for mapping many states, including part of Washington. While doing this in 1938 he wasmarried and flew to Pennsylvania with this bride to map that state.

Bortles joined Northwest Airlines in 1939 and has been in the Seattle area since 1947. He has flown 28,000 hours and has no idea how many miles.

Not a smoker and a “very light” drinker, Bortles exercise 30 minutes a day and often swims an hour or so. Except for the next couple of weeks, he has no intention of staying out of the cockpit.

“I think I’ll go up to Alaska and get involved in flying there, perhaps in connection with the oil field,” he said. “I don’t want to lose my touch.

Lynel Bortles, 18, a nephew whom the Bortles adopted, said his dad is “in better shape than I am.”

The Bortles have two sons, Larry, 30 a businessman in Honolulu, and Dan, 29, who lives in Medina and works for the National Bank of Wahington, Tacoma.

Bortles, whose company praised him as a “most successful pilot” and thanked him for a job “well done,’ someday may give up his pilots wings for water wings.

He’s thinking of buying a sail boat and touching down on some of the far-distant ports in the orient he has gotten to know so well as a pilot.