Distinctly Montana Magazine

71 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m Eventually, JFS would win the government's contract for provid- ing planes to airdrop smokejumpers into the mountains. The first such drop would occur in 1940, when a Travel Air was used to drop a firefighter near Moose Creek. In 1949, amid the tragedy of the Mann Gulch Fire, immortalized by Norman Maclean in Young Men and Fire, the C-47/DC-3 N24320 now known as Miss Montana flew the smokejumpers to the drop zone in the ill-fated mission that would see the deaths of 13 firefighters. By March 31, 1950, their fleet had grown to include 2 DC-3s, 3 Ford Tri-Motors, and 26 smaller aircraft, and in 1963 alone they made $902,000 in revenue—82% of which came from US Forest Service contracts. But in the early 1970s, following a series of deals and acquisi- tions that fell through, Johnson, then in his late 70s, was looking to sell the business. After the government rewarded another fly- ing service the contracts for flying smokejumpers, Johnson sold the business to Evergreen Helicopters. Bob Johnson would die in 1980 at the age of 87, having made an outsized impression on the skies above western Montana. Then, in 1993, the remains of the Johnson Flying Service—the boneyard—were purchased by Stan Cohen, Dick Komberec, and Steve Smith with the intention of turning it into a museum of Montana aviation. They borrowed a half-empty hangar from the Missoula airport, applied for non-profit status, and raised money with a high-flying airshow for the public in 1995. Perhaps one of their greatest achievements was locating the very same C-47 that had flown during the Mann Gulch incident and, Customized. Montana-made. Built to last. Customized. Montana-made. Built to last. ShopDistinctlyMontana.com ShopDistinctlyMontana.com

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