Wien family memoir charts the rise of Alaska aviation — and the pilots who made it possible

Anyone who knows anything about Alaska aviation history knows the name Wien. The family’s patriarch, Noel Wien, is arguably the state’s most celebrated pilot, and cofounded, with his brother Ralph, Wien Alaska Airways, the first airline in the sparsely populated northernmost territory of America.

Noel Wien’s life and impact have been well documented, but the family that followed in his footsteps continues to blaze pathways through the sky even now, extending the story.

Richard Wien is part of the second generation of Wiens. The son of the famed pilot and his wife Ada, he was born in Fairbanks and grew up around airplanes when commercial flight was just taking off in Alaska and across the globe. As an adult he became a pilot, an executive, an airline owner, and an elder statesman of the a