Alaska Airlines had hangar at Paine long before new terminal

Before Boeing was here, and before I-5 cut through Everett, Alaska Airlines had a big presence at Paine Field.

The airline wasn’t flying travelers out of Snohomish County — a milestone that’s expected in the near future as work continues on a new Paine Field passenger terminal. But in 1948, the Snohomish County Airport built a 40,000-square-foot hangar to be leased by Alaska as a repair and maintenance facility.

That was 70 years ago.

“The huge new $200,000 hangar being erected at Paine Field was entering the final stages of construction,” The Everett Herald reported on July 31, 1948. It became a workplace for Alaska’s aircraft mechanics into the mid-1960s.

Today, the former Alaska hangar is a destination for vintage aircraft fans. It houses the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum. Billionaire Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. renovated the building, which opened as a museum in 2008, and leases it from Snohomish County.

Alaska Airlines retiree Dick Zengel, 84, started at the Paine Field facility in 1962.

He worked first in a sheet metal shop, and later doing aircraft maintenance on Alaska planes.

He now lives near West Seattle’s Alki Point, and commuted from Seattle back then. The interstate from Seattle didn’t reach Everett until 1965. Before that, Zengel said, “it was Highway 99 the whole way, every day.”

“We worked a lot of overtime,” Zengel said. “An airplane would be due out of overhaul. It was 24 hours a day sometimes.”

Now, developer Propeller Airports is investing about $40 million to build the two-gate terminal at Paine Field. The Herald reported last month that the Federal Aviation Administration had begun a supplemental environmental assessment, a response to announced plans by three airlines — including Alaska — for as many as 24 flights per day, total, at Paine Field. With FAA approval, operations could begin later this year or early next year.

“I never dreamed it would happen,” 75-year-old Ray Hudlow said of Alaska Airlines flying commercially out of Everett.

Hudlow, of Federal Way, started working for Alaska at Paine Field in 1962. “That was even before Boeing was up there,” said Hudlow, who became an Alaska manager in 1980 and retired in 1999.

The airline’s Paine Field hangar operated until 1963 when workers were moved to Sea-Tac Airport, Hudlow said. It was used again by Alaska in 1966 and ‘67 while a new facility for the airline was being built at Sea-Tac.

The Alaska hangar’s years here partly overlapped with Paine Air Force Base, on the site under that name from 1951 until the mid-1960s. Hudlow said it wasn’t unusual for Alaska workers to “go across the field” to borrow a tool or chat at the air base.

It was 1966 when the Boeing Co. selected its site, just north of Paine Field, to build its 747 Jumbo Jet.

Hudlow was at work on Feb. 9, 1963, when a Boeing 727 transport made its first flight, from Renton Municipal Airport to Paine Field.

It was parked right near the Alaska hangar, he said. Hudlow said planes being serviced and repaired at the hangar included the “triple-tail” Lockheed Constellation, known as a “Super Connie,” the Convair 880, the DC-3 and DC-4, and the T-28 Trojan trainer.

A Super Connie was so big, it had to be jockeyed into the hangar, Hudlow said. Its wingspan was wider than the doors. Once, Hudlow was aboard a Lockheed Constellation when it rolled off a Paine Field taxiway in the fog and got stuck in the mud. Attached to a tug, it had to be towed out.

“What I remember was how out in the woods it was,” Zengel said of Paine Field. “You’d go down this two-lane blacktop road.”

Zengel is amazed that Alaska now flies to Boston, Hawaii, Mexico and other far-flung places. He remembers, before airline deregulation, when there was one flight a day from Seattle to Fairbanks, Alaska.

In January, Alaska Airlines announced eight destinations it plans out of Paine Field: Portland, Phoenix and Las Vegas, plus Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, California.

Jesse Naylor, 77, wasn’t long out of Arlington High School in 1960 when he started working for Alaska Airlines at Paine Field. His parents were part owners of the Lake Goodwin Resort, and he had worked summers there before landing a job with the airline. He now lives in Orting.

“In those days, they didn’t have jets,” said Naylor, who recalled that after work he’d ride a go-cart on a little track some distance from Paine Field’s runway.

He remembers when overhauled aircraft engines were tested by bolting them, facing backward, to the back of a bus.

“They chopped the back off a bus, put in a window, a desk and throttles,” Naylor said.

Now retired, he worked 20 years as an Alaska mechanic and 22 years in management. His wife is a flight attendant.

The retirees said they’re entitled to free trips on Alaska’s domestic flights. When will those flights start taking off from Everett? That’s a waiting game.

“It’s going to make a lot of people happy — and a lot of people unhappy,” Naylor said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Alaska Airlines workers in 1957 at Paine Field, where the airline’s repair and maintenance facility was built in 1948. (Jim Leo / Everett Herald)

An Alaska Airlines plane and other aircraft are pictured outside Alaska’s maintenance and repair facility at Paine Field in 1951. The airline will soon offer commercial flights from Paine Field. (Ken Knudson / Everett Herald)

In this 1957 photo, an aircraft was being worked on inside the Alaska Airlines repair and maintenance hangar at Paine Field. Built in 1948, the hangar now houses the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum. (Jim Leo / Everett Herald)

A DC-4 dubbed the Starliner Seattle in the Alaska Airlines repair and maintenance hangar at Paine Field in 1951. Alaska will soon offer commercial flights from the Everett airport. (Ken Knudson / Everett Herald)