Serving Midwest Aviation Since 1960
Serving Midwest Aviation Since 1960
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When the telegraph put the Pony Express out of business, Morse Code was the medium for transmitting electronic messages. Later it was used by ship's radio operators and then by aircraft. Until the early 1950s, a radio operator and telegraph key flew on many international flights. Amateur Radio (or Ham) was the last stronghold of Morse Code and Ham operators were required to be proficient as recently as 2002. Aviation is the vestigial user of Morse Code where navigation aids still broadcast their...
Fertile Municipal Airport is built on the shore of one of the Earth's largest lakes. Unfortunately, the lake went away a few millennia ago. Lake Agassiz was formed by melting glaciers and the famous Sand Hills around Fertile were once the beach. That bit of geological history means the immediate neighborhood belies the name. Mostly oak savanna and prairie, the soil is not good for growing crops. The Sand Hills do provide unique recreational activities and a spectacular natural area called the...
Independent flight schools had their "golden age" in the 1960s and 70s when there were four training operations at Crystal and the sky all-around was never still. Two of those operations also had busy aircraft charter services. There were some colorful characters too, including Lee Gilligan, who owned Crystal-Shamrock Airways. Shamrock was a Cessna Pilot Center and one of the last operators to offer passenger service in the DC-3. In the 21st century, most flight training transitioned to large...
Humans have been "stocking" fish for a couple millennia. Chinese palaces often featured ponds inhabited by ornamental fish and archaeological evidence suggests several Mediterranean civilizations were in the business of enhancing their fisheries before the Roman Empire took them over. In the United States the practice of "planting" fish goes back to the colonial period. Early attempts were focused on sport fishing and involved mostly trout. The bad news was hatchery raised fish were being...
Once there were navigators. Not a touchscreen gizmo made by Garmin or the weirdly mutated creatures that got hyped up on drugs to guide the Spacing Guild ships in Frank Hebert's novel "Dune." Actual human beings once practiced their art using "dead reckoning" and celestial navigation. In the 1930s a subspecialty evolved to guide aircraft over the earth. Charles Lindbergh found his way across the Atlantic using the compass and clock technique very much like that taught to beginning flying...
Many places have cold weather, but in International Falls it can be spectacular. Citizens of International Falls and Koochiching County embrace the climate, not just tolerate it. Winter gets cold, but summer is comfortably warm. Whatever the season, this area offers some of the best outdoor recreation in North America. Those who live there love it, and lots of people visit for a taste. The best way to get there is by flying to the "Falls International Airport," aka INL. The airport is a joint...
When Orville stepped off the Wright Flyer on Dec. 17, 1903, the first thing he said was, "Where's the bathroom?" Well, maybe not. But once flights got longer toilets became a high priority after landing. When flight plans and IFR clearances were invented, a telephone became the second thing pilots needed. Back in the "old days" rural airports often had an "out house" and a phone booth to fill the need. If phone booths are a mystery to you, think "Tardis." As General Aviation evolved, what...
Professional aviators frequently aspire to fly for an airline. Airlines are a big target, about 110,000 pilot positions exist in the United States. Some pilots want to be in corporate aviation, and about 15,000 opportunities are available for that kind of work. Charles Scott wanted a job of which there are less than 400 in the U.S., but he was aiming at something even smaller. Five people in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources can claim the title of conservation officer/pilot and that...
A small investment can result in a big improvement. In 2020, a simple project at the Fergus Falls Municipal Airport added considerably to airport safety by relocating a taxiway. Coincidentally, this was the oldest pavement on the airport and very much needed of replacement making the project very cost effective, a good two for one deal. In simple terms, the taxiway was too close to Runway 17/35. FAA language is more complicated, but the result was the same. Advisory Circular 150/5300-13A...
Smokey Bear's campaign started on Aug. 9, 1944 and is the longest running public service advertisement in U.S. history. Fire safety is just as important today as it was during World War II. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' Division of Forestry has all kinds of support for fire prevention. Brochures and other reading materials are available plus DNR Forestry sponsors education events and seminars. DNR Forestry provides wildfire protection on nearly 17 million acres of Minnesota's...
In Upper Michigan there is a delightful place called the Keweenaw Peninsula. Keweenaw is a Native American word that roughly translates as "portage." Over 7,000 years ago the area became a source of copper originally mined by a group called the Algonquians. Copper taken from the Keweenaw by prehistoric miners has been found as far away as Arkansas and Oregon. By the middle of the 19th Ccentury, copper mining was underway on an industrial scale. In 1885, the "Michigan Mining School" was founded...
"Blind luck will beat careful planning every time" might be a good theory for managing stuff like your finances. Thousands of authors have written millions of pages about financial planning, most of which isn't very helpful. Talking with "experts" is quicker but likely not much better. However, planning aviation facilities requires a more scientific approach. Fortunately, the FAA has provided several hundred pages of succinct advice on how to plan airports. A few days of fascinating reading shou...
If you can get past the fact that they have way too many moving parts, Helicopters are wonderful aircraft. Igor Sikorsky developed the first practical machine for the US Army called the R-4. About 400 were built and mostly used for medical evacuation during WWII. Helicopter flying during the Korean conflict was made famous by the movie and TV series MASH featuring the Bell 47. That same type was used by a Los Angeles TV station in 1958 as the first "eye and the sky" and called the "Telecopter."...
David Berger is a District Medical Officer in Broome, Western Australia. There are nine regions in Western Australia. Broome is in the Kimberly region on the northwest coast. It's a fascinating place. Local indigenous people painted their thoughts in rock art that can still be seen 40,000 years later. Metals, petroleum, and agriculture sustain the local economy. Diving for natural pearls is a major activity, as is farming oysters. One third of the world's diamonds are mined in Kimberly....
Business and commercial flights to rural airports work best if take offs and landings can happen even if the weather's not so good. What does an airport owner do when some important users need lower instrument approach minimums to operate effectively? The city of Roseau recently debated that question and came up with the right answer. Snowmobiles were invented in Roseau and Polaris Industries is the premier manufacturer of those machines. Roseau native Edgar Hetten founded Polaris, but the...
Nellis Air Force Base is a huge facility. It has two 10,000-foot-long runways and is home for more Air Force units than any other military installation. The base is located on the northeast side of Las Vegas (that's "The Meadows" in Spanish FYI), a sprawling metropolis with a permanent population getting close to three quarters of a million. "Vegas" is the entertainment and gambling capital of North America and visitors can swell the area's population by 50%. In the 1930s, about 8,400 people liv...
Lots of general aviation airports have only one runway. Some have two, and a few busy ones near urban areas might have three or even four. In many cases, the runway configuration is historic. Airports developed in the 1940s generally tried to come close to the three-runway configuration idealized by military bases built during World War II. The runways formed a triangle, assuring that aircraft could always take off and land into the wind or nearly so. Wadena's original airport came close to the...
Happiness is getting paid for what you love to do anyway. That's especially true if you're a flyer or nature lover. Lots of people spend plenty of money to go flying or get away from it all. Robert Hodge had a job where he got paid to both fly and be in the great outdoors. For 30 - plus years he was a game warden and pilot for what is now the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. To paraphrase the old TV commercial, "It just doesn't get any better than that." Bob Hodge grew up with a passio...
In the early 1800s a Catholic Priest mistook a lake for a something else and named a place in Minnesota using the French word "detroit" (that means straight or channel). Soon a village had sprung up with that name and was a waypoint on the Red River Ox Cart Trail. Incorporated in 1881, Minnesota's Detroit became the seat of Becker County. Eventually the citizens got tired of their mail ending up in Michigan, organized a referendum in 1926 and corrected the "clerical" error by changing the...
Park Point is one cool place. It's the world's longest freshwater sand spit and separates the Duluth Harbor from the rest of Lake Superior. Since the lake's water is usually about 45 degrees, nature supplies the air conditioning. At the northwest end is the famous lift bridge and Canal Park, the Duluth entertainment and tourist district. On the southeast end is an 18-acre old growth red and white pine forest with a kind of spiritual ambiance. One of the City's most desirable residential areas...
John Parker was a pioneer. Growing up on a Southern Minnesota farm, he loved horses, but his fate took him to aviation and the use of aircraft for conservation and wildlife management. From 1949 until 1983, Warden/Pilot Parker flew for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources from what is now the Warroad International Memorial Airport. A cowboy at heart, he flew his planes across a state size range. Parker's early career took him from controlling the wolf population (then considered a...
More than 375,000 passengers pass through Rochester International Airport in a year, second in Minnesota only to MSP. Lots of those passengers are heading for the famous Mayo Clinic. American, Delta and United Airlines provide scheduled service. Spotting a wide body airliner with Arabic writing is not unusual. There's also a lot of General Aviation traffic. The airport averages over 50,000 annual control tower operations and is home to 65 aircraft. This is a busy place. Runway 13/31 is just...
"Our mission is to conserve and manage the state's natural resources, to provide outdoor recreation opportunities, and to provide for commercial uses of natural resources in a way that creates a sustainable quality of life." Minnesota Department of Natural Resources That's a big job! Minnesota has 75 state parks, 1300 miles of trails, 3000 public water access facilities, 5 million acres of state forest, (you get the idea). DNR people enforce laws, manage fisheries, monitor wildlife, fight forest...
"Say It Ain't So..." (Chicago Tribune headline after Shoeless Joe Jackson was indicted for fixing the World Series). Non-Directional Beacons (NDB) are being shut off. What will flight instructors use to torture their instrument students? How can an iconic system for air navigation just go away? It's not right! OK, so I'm a dinosaur. I cut my aviation teeth 50 years ago in the high Arctic and the "Non-Directional Beacon" was the approach aid of choice there. My brain still contains the necessary...
Back when "overnight delivery" was exotic, an interesting fleet of airplanes flew "time sensitive" stuff like legal papers and canceled checks. One such aircraft was the Beech 18. Originally a business transport or small airliner, it was a tail dragger with two radial engines. The "18" evolved. Some had turboprop motors and other's tricycle gear. A big player in the business with the intriguing name of "Sedalia, Marshall and Booneville Stage Line" once had the world's largest fleet of these now...
