This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 edition of Briefings
In its annual session spotlighting local general aviation (GA) airports, this year's Fall Forum featured two northern Minnesota airports, Aitkin and Pine River.
Jake Carlson is co-owner with her husband of the fixed-based operation Aitkin Aviation at Aitkin Municipal Airport. The airport is two-thirds owned by Aitkin County and one-third by the city. The city clerk serves as the manager, but the Carlsons contract with the airport commission as field managers, taking care of mowing, snow plowing, and general upkeep of the airport.
The Aitkin airport is named Kurtz Field after Steve Kurtz, a long-time flight instructor with the airport. Runway 16/34 is a 4,000-ft. paved runway without a taxiway; the east-west runway is a 3,200-ft. grass strip with a taxiway. The airport also has a campsite for use by pilots.
As the GA pilot population ages, Carlson sees a need to involve more young people in flying and aviation. She notes that the local chapter of the Young Eagles program (a program of the Experimental Aircraft Association that introduces children to flying) has flown almost 2,000 Aitkin-area children. "It's so much fun to see the kids on their first flight," she says. "Maybe taking [them] up on a half-hour ride will get them interested."
The Aitkin airport's major annual event is a fly-in and classic car show held the last Sunday in June, during which the airport serves about 2,000 meals featuring wild rice, Airkin's cash crop. The event, Carlson says, is a way to keep the community involved with the airport in a positive way.
Recent rezoning at the airport raised concerns in the community about how land was being used, Carlson says. When someone made a comment after a public hearing questioning the need for the airport, Carlson fired off a letter to the editor in the local paper describing the many economic benefits the airport has on the community. Three or four businesses wouldn't exist in Aitkin if not for the airport, and services such as LifeLink couldn't operate, she noted.
Following Carlson, Gary Gardiner talked about Pine River Municipal Airport. Similar to Aitkin, the Pine River airport is owned by the city and managed by the city clerk. Gardiner, who is also a pilot, heads the airport commission, which he has served on since 1999. The commission had stopped being active until Gardiner and others at the airport revived it.
The airport's one runway is paved, but a turf crosswind runway is in the planning stages, Gardiner says. The airport began as a grass strip with several open T-hangars at another location. It was relocated in 1980, after a real estate developer acquired the airport's land. The city moved the airport to a grass strip on the other side of town, Gardiner explains. The runway was paved around 1990 and the number of visitors and users grew markedly. "We were getting an influx of visitors to the Whitefish chain of lakes," Gardiner says. "We were convenient – [visitors] didn't have to go into Brainers." The airport currently has 45 hangars with at least one airplane in each.
Most of Pine River's users, if not local, fly into the airport from Midwest locations such as Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado; the average range is from around 150 to 400 miles, with a few more distant users, Gardiner says.
Similar to the situation in Aitkin, Gardiner says some Pine River residents don't realize how the airport contributes to the local economy. Gardiner credits the economic impact calculator, developed by the University of Minnesota and available on the AirTAP website, as a helpful tool for generating numbers to educate the community.
And when it comes to the community, "The key is promoting things," he says. "You have to get out and talk...and get [people] involved."
