Daredevil of the Skies, Floyd Andrew DeHay, aka Frank Dorbrandt
By Hank Nuwer
Alaska’s wide spaces, upper-level win currents, and landing fields in questionable condition made flying in pioneer days before World War Two required pilots with uncommon skill, guts and the personality of a swashbuckler.
Had Alaska aviation hero and daredevil Frank Dorbrandt died in the skies prior to his death by pneumonia on May 4, 1935, he might have been more of a legend than he already was.
Unfortunately, a taste for liquor and a history of chance taking and criminal activities caught up to him at the end of his life.
Here’s the story of a bold and fearless pilot, a man whose fatal flaws dominated news reports of his death.
Dorbrandt was born Floyd Andrew DeHay in Pasadena, California, on June 12, 1893. Like other pioneers who came to Alaska, he had reason to change his name.
A fiery redhead with fists to back up his boasts, he worked as a teenager as a bouncer at the Savoy Tivoli dance hall in San Francisco.
But in 1917, DeHay stole an automobile owned by R.H. Files from a garage in Riverside, California. He evaded numerous police cars in a high-speed chase that ended in Los Angeles. He and companion Ben Batten might have made a getaway save that he made the mistake of swiping a car nearly empty of gas.
They surrendered and were taken into custody.
A Judge Densmore took pity on the boy’s youth and sentenced him until age 18 for a few months at the Preston School of Industry at Ione.
Then in 1913, the Los Angeles Evening Express ran an article stating that Mrs. Charlotte Dehay (cq), the former Charlotte Wilson, a daughter of a prominent Socialist newspaper publisher, filed suit for an annulment.
She charged that her marriage of three days was due to Dehay’s threats to kill her and her father.
The annulment was granted.
DeHay thereupon changed his name to Frank Dorbrandt, which was the name of an uncle.
Frank Dorbrandt made headlines in his twenties in the Southwest and Utah as a daredevil air stuntman thrilling spectators as he walked on wings or hung upside down from his knees.
He had some close calls, including getting away with mere superficial burns in 1921 while trying to save his employer’s plane in a fire at the Utah State Fair.
Dorbrandt also tried competitive auto racing for a time, although he rarely, if ever, finished first.
But it was as a pilot in Alaska that he won hearts and headlines. He delivered medical supplies to remote Alaska outposts, checked on old timers in their cabins, and participated in a number of rescue missions.
He next married a former Fairbanks post office worker named Vida Deigh. He courted Miss Deigh in 1929 by buzzing low over her home and place of work to gain her attention.
She shared her husband’s love of flying and adventure.
At a time that long-distance plane flights made history and deadlines, Dorbrandt—with his wife and a mechanic as passengers—made the first ever flight from Seattle to Anchorage in under 19 hours on August 3, 1930.
That second marriage also was doomed. He next married the former Mrs. Gale Pierce Long of Anchorage just two months before his death.
At various times, Dorbrandt owned up to seven planes and made a good income purchasing furs with Alaska’s indigenous peoples, sponsoring Arctic sightseeing trips, delivering mail, and freighting passengers and supplies to small cities and into the bush.
A good deal of his income came to selling appliances and fresh fruit and vegetables to people of small villages. He said that his customers were astounded the first time he brought them a shipment of bananas.
But his fur dealings in the 1930s ran afoul of Customs agents, and he had one of his planes seized and sold for transferring contraband.
For years, Dorbrandt lived two different lives. In the first, he was an aviation pioneer, entrepreneur, and concerned citizen. In the second, he purchased furs from Alaska’s indigenous people, often trading them needed household items in exchange. However, in addition, he was charged with illegally profiing by concealing fur purchases from U.S. Customs.
In 1921, DeHay was sued by a likely relative named E. J. DeHay from Imperial County, California, and made headlines about that time performing stunts in the air for adoring crowds in Arizona and Utah. He used the name Frank Dorbrandt at that time and ever more.
Part two today concerns the messy conclusion to Dorbrandt’s spectacularly adventurous life. He died on May 4, 1935.
In short, it’s hard to imagine how Dorbrandt would have navigated all his personal and business crises had he lived.
In the first place, he faced charges of fur smuggling and avoiding U.S. Customs fees, as well as making false declarations to that agency.
Second, he had been married all of two months to Mrs. Gale Pierce Long of Anchorage. That marriage occurred soon after he and the former Vida Deigh of Fairbanks divorced.
The previous year, he failed to appear at a filiation hearing of then 19-year-old Marjorie H. Seller who claimed Dorbrandt fathered her daughter Frances Patricia (Pat) Seller.
Seller was the daughter of the celebrated basket weaver and village educator Kathryn Dyakanoff (the former Ekaterina Dyakanoff) Seller and Harry G. Seller who built and ran a government school in Atka in the Aleutian Islands.
At some point, either just before or after Dorbrandt’s death, Seller claimed the aviator had married her and was thereon known as Marjorie H. Dorbrandt.
However, when Marjorie Seller, then 20, was slightly injured when an automobile struck her while crossing the street in Seattle, she had not yet won the paternity suit and never would. Dorbrandt forfeited his $500 bail by ducking a court appointment in Seattle.
Marjorie’s daughter was raised as Frances Patricia (Pat) Dorbrandt. After her marriage, she became Mrs. Thomas J. Daley.
Marjorie’s brother John Seller, a World War Two veteran, died at age 98 on January 28, 2021.
In addition to a messy love life, Dorbrandt’s final flights before his death were made without a pilot credential.
On August 20, 1934, the allegedly intoxicated Dorbrandt landed his trimotored plane in Anchorage. He had departed from Point Barrow with a grossly overloaded plane, carrying 11 passengers and a dog in a plane equipped for five passengers.
He made a risky turn just before touchdown, spilling passengers who had been seated on four 50-gallon gas tanks. Whereupon, inspector Murray Hall seized his license.
Newspaper accounts reported that Dorbrandt went into the city of Anchorage, overindulged, and threatened to shoot Hall if the inspector tried to stop him from taking off in his grounded plane.
At the airport, he mysteriously said, “You’ll never see me again.” His meaning was unclear, but some reporters thought he planned to kill himself.
However, he did return and continued flying.
He was arrested for his alleged smuggling of furs and released on $2,500 bail.
In either late April or early May of 1935, the red-headed pilot severely injured his hand while turning over his plane’s motor.
Weakened, and getting medical help too late, Dorbrandt died of pneumonia at age 42.
I’m not sure I’d call him an Alaska legend despite his many heroic deeds and aviation pioneering, but undoubtedly, he was one of the many one-of-a-kinder characters that populated Alaska before statehood.
Hank Nuwer is a Fairbanks writer and community theater actor. This weekend the University of Alaska Fairbanks puts on the musical Strike! Hank plays a heading role as a union buster.