Minnesota Flyer - Serving Midwest Aviation Since 1960

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 ear...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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 ab...

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...

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...

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...

"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 w...

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...

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...

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...

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 La...

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....

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 Ho...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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 susta...

"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...

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... Full story