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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 2022)
LUNDGREN: Camp Sherman man had a storied career Continued from page 1 early days of aviation, when pilots would fly into rural communities, often landing in a field near a barn, and put on impromptu airshows. It has come to designate an expedi- tion that travels town-to-town in short hops. With Russia opening up to the West after the fall of the Soviet Union, it seemed that it would be possible to barn- storm from village to village across the vast spaces of arctic Siberia. It took years to bring the project to fruition, but in 1994, WIRED Magazine got behind the idea 4 and it became the first <online= expedition, recounted on the then-new World Wide Web, as well as on the pioneering magazine9s pages. <It was chaotic to try to organize that trip,= Lundgren recalled. Folks in Arctic Siberia who had lived under the controls of the Soviet Union were not used to foreigners showing up in Russian Atonov An-2 biplanes and pulling out giant satellite phones. And <upload- ing= stories and photos from Siberia wasn9t viable for an infant Internet 4 Lundgren and his colleagues had to work the old-fashioned way, dictating the text of stories, and entrusting digital photo files to a businessman who was returning to the United States and offered to deliver them to WIRED. The adventure was wild and woolly 4 but satisfy- ing enough to do it again the following year, this time under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institute9s Arctic Studies Center, who wanted to visit and chronicle the lives of indigenous peoples in the wilds of Siberia, from Yakutsk to the Bering Straits. During this time, Lundgren had taken to carrying the Explorer9s Club Flag #7, an honor accorded to few explorers. Lundgren9s Living Legends of Aviation nomi- nation notes that <carrying the historic Flag #7 from the Explorers Club across Siberia led Shane to cross the paths of historic early arctic pilots George Hubert Wilkins and Ben Eielson, who attempted flying over the top of the world in the late 1920s.= Lundgren recalls that he <got increasingly intrigued with the idea of flying to the North Pole.= In 1997, he and several other adventurers made an attempt to reach the North Pole in Lundgren9s Atonov An-2 biplanes. They were turned back by mechanical problems. The unsuccess- ful attempt was documented by National Geographic in a film titled <Antonovs Over the Arctic,= which can be viewed on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ZGc2KbB7HMc In the film, Lundgren says, <We could have made the Pole, we just wouldn9t have ever come back from the Pole. And it9s just like going to the summit of Everest 4 if you9re within a hundred meters and you know you can make it, but you don9t think you can get down, what9s the point? The point is to live and to come back and to do other things.= The following year, Lundgren and his team returned for another shot. The North Pole offers a very narrow weather window when a pilot can hope for suf- ficient light to see where to land and no fog to obscure the view. For Lundgren the window opened on April 13, 1998. Landing itself is tricky, since the North Pole is not a land mass, but all ice. <You have to find a piece that9s big enough to land,= Lundgren said. Then the pilot must make test touch-downs to make sure the ice will hold. Lundgren found his spot and made his landing. He said Wednesday, February 23, 2022 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 21 PHOTO COURTESY SHANE LUNDGREN Landing on ice at the North Pole, Shane Lundgren led two attempts to make the pole in Russian biplanes. it was -30 degrees, but beauti- ful. The team left the engines running while they took in the moment 4 then they climbed back in the cockpit and took off. The return flight was not without adventure. Stronger- than-expected headwinds meant they had insufficient fuel to hit their destination of Spitsbergen, Norway, so they had to divert to a Danish Air Station at the top of Greenland before making the Norway leg. Lundgren donated his Antonov An-2, dubbed Polar 1, to the Museum of Flight in Seattle Washington. To get it there, in 1999 he flew across the North Atlantic and across the USA to its final home. Lundgren lives in Camp Sherman, where he served on the Black Butte School Board Fast Real Estate is Selling in Central Oregon… List Now for Top Dollar! Sold! for a decade from 2007 to 2017. <Since I9ve been here, its been raising a family and being a developer,= he said. He still has his hand in the aviation world, as CEO of the company he founded in 2015, Metolius Aviation Capital, which provides financial ser- vices to the commercial avia- tion market. Lundgren is modest 4 almost abashed 4 about being honored as a nominee by Living Legends of Aviation at a gala in Beverly Hills, California, on January 21. The event9s emcee was John Travolta, and many actors and other celebrities 4 such as Harrison Ford 4 who have a passion for aviation attended. As its website notes, the <Living Legends of Aviation= are remarkable people of extraordinary accomplish- ment in aviation including: entrepreneurs, innovators, industry leaders, astronauts, record breakers, pilots who have become celebrities, and celebrities who have become pilots. The Legends meet yearly to recognize and honor individuals that have made significant contributions in aviation.= <It9s celebrity-meets-avi- ation, a little bit,= Lundgren said. <It9s a nice mix of inter- esting people who are genu- inely interested in aviation.= Lundgren9s exploits in Siberia and the Arctic, and his ongoing work in the field, will place him with the likes of Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson, Tom Cruise, and Harrison Ford 4 and his father Kim Lundgren 4 among the Living Legends of Aviation. The Arends Realty Group REPRESENTING THE BUYERS PENDING PENDING 355 S. Jefferson Way Sisters | $589,500 17117 Palomino Drive, Sisters | $640,000 Phil Arends Principal Broker 541.420.9997 Sheila Jones, Broker phil.arends@cascadesir.com GRI, ABR, SRS, RENEE 503-949-0551 | sheila@stellarnw.com m 382 E. Hood Ave., Ste A-East, Sisters s sheila.oregonpropertyfinders.com Thomas Arends Broker 541.285.1535 thomas.arends@cascadesir.com www.arendsrealtygroup.com cascadesothebysrealty.com | 290 E. 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