Over the centuries many different types of pavements have been invented by humans to make travel easier and keep things moving regardless of the weather. Beginning around 300 BC the Romans built...

Internet shopping is the way to go in the 21st century. Point, click and buy means you never have to leave home to spend your money. The ancestor of "online" stores may have started in 1884 when the...

Charles Lindbergh was an environmentalist. After his many accomplishments in aviation, he became an enthusiastic steward of the planet. In 1969 the proposed Voyagers National Park had his attention an...

Much of the wisdom imparted by the Federal Aviation Administration is contained in publications called "Advisory Circulars" or ACs. Both thorough and interesting, they cover a variety of subjects...

In 1929 the city of Duluth purchased 640 acres to build an airport. It opened in 1930 with two, 2,650-foot-long turf runways. Scheduled airline service to Duluth started in 1940. After the beginning...

When runways were invented, they were mostly grass, at least in Minnesota. A strip of land was graded and rolled until it was fairly smooth and flat, then grass was planted and a turf runway came...

There are two Two Harbors. One is an unincorporated village on Catalina Island, the other is a major city on the north shore of Lake Superior. Catalina Island is an enclave of the rich, famous and tho...

Carlton County is a great place no matter what you like. There's plenty of public land for outdoor recreation including the spectacular Jay Cook State Park. Less strenuous recreation is available at...

Little Falls/Morrison County-Lindbergh Field is exactly what a General Aviation facility ought to be. Runway 13/31 is 4,000 feet long with all modern lighting systems and the customary RNAV...

Swedes are famous for being persistent. That's a trait that comes in handy with airports and revolutions. Emigrants from Sweden were the earliest settlers around Mora, Minnesota. Folks there are proud...

Downtown Moorhead is having a renaissance. It's a welcoming place featuring some great artwork. The Ace Hardware Store on Main has added to the ambiance by sponsoring a mural of Florence Klingensmith....

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

"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...