Flying High, Our Aviation Industry Takes Off

Here beside the world’s largest freshwater lake, it’s easy to recall and remember our maritime heritage. But while the water remains our soul and mainstay, part of our heritage requires a look up into the skies.

Aviation has played a significant role in our regional history, from the bushplanes that carried tourists into the backcountry or supplies and medical transportation to our remote villages, to the high-speed Strategic Air Command jets that once flew over the Big Lake and called local air bases home – and still do at the 148th Fighter Wing at the Minnesota Air National Guard Base in Duluth.

Our region has grown two astronauts, a World War II flying ace and the concept of waterbombing wildfires.

Today, the aviation industry reflects not just our history, but it charts our future as one of the fastest growing enterprises in the region.

In this year’s special State of the Lake Report we take a brief look at the past, present, future and personalities that keep our heritage flying high.

THE AVIATION INDUSTRY

When it comes to taking flight, the Lake Superior region looks to a special set of innovative brothers. No, not Orville and Wilbur, the Wrights, but rather Dale and Alan, the Klapmeiers.

It was in 1984 that Dale and Alan, in the barn on their parents’ Baraboo, Wisconsin, farm, began a new small aircraft company – Cirrus.

That business launch (and the Klapmeier brothers) would eventually fly to the shores of Lake Superior, bringing their company and along with it opportunities that blossomed into a regional aviation-related industry that predictions estimate could grow by 40 percent in the coming years. Anyone who has seen the multiple Cirrus Aircraft billboards recruiting workers can believe the predictions.

“What a powerhouse this area has become for aerospace,” says William King, Cirrus vice president of business administration.  

From the time the Klapmeiers developed their first aircraft kit to today, Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth has designed numerous general aviation small aircraft, created a groundbreaking safety system involving a parachute for its planes, sold nearly 6,000 piston-powered aircraft, has nearly 800 employees with hopes of adding about 200 more in the next two years and is about to roll out production of its first jet in 2015. Its Cirrus SR22 is the best selling FAA-certified small aircraft in the world, besting sales of Cessna’s similar size model. The Klapmeiers have received numerous awards and accolades, including 2014 induction into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, the aviation industry has indeed taken flight around the Lake region with a wide range of businesses, services and training. There are nearly a dozen businesses just in the Twin Ports linked into aviation, from the new Kestrel Aircraft company started in Superior by Alan Klapmeier to a Duluth enterprise that creates interior decor for airplanes to a software management system that tracks maintenance needs of airplanes. A maintenance center in Duluth that contracts with Air Canada employs more than 300 workers. (See side story.)

To really see what can be possible in the high-flying world of the aviation industry, the growth and accolades accorded to Cirrus Aircraft remain an inspirational tale.

Cirrus President Patrick Waddick has been with the company since 1988, the year its first aircraft kit was sold, built and flown. He had just gotten out of college when he started as an intern with the Klapmeiers’ new company.

The brothers were searching for the right location to establish their manufacturing plant. They’d made some contacts in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the company today does manufacture composite parts for its planes, but after more than a year, the logistics were not coming together as quickly as they’d hoped. And it turned out they would need a home fast.

They turned to Duluth, an area with which these avid motorcyclists, who traveled around Lake Superior, were familiar. Early in 1993, they made contact with the office of Duluth Mayor Gary Doty and arranged for a meeting. Within 24 hours of arriving in Duluth, they were in contact with not only Gary, but also U.S. Representative Jim Oberstar. Within 60 days, Gary and Jim had a financial package in place to entice the company to relocate to the city.

“Jim Oberstar told us we could locate anywhere in Minnesota, as long as it was Duluth,” William King fondly recalls.

“I can’t say enough about what Mayor Doty did,” Patrick says about the mayor pulling together local and state resources. “It goes such a long way, and I think, in some cases, it’s a lost art.”

The region was perfect to grow an aviation industry. Despite what some might think, Duluth had plenty of sunny days for flying, a long history of aviation with both public and military airstrips, and a great location for living.

“This is a beautiful area to fly,” says Patrick, adding, “there’s just enough here to do everything you need to do.”

Ground breaking for the new 30,000-square-foot aircraft research and development facility was in 1993 and the Duluth plant officially opened in 1994. Summer that same year, the company unveiled its prototype at the EAA AirVenture airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The aircraft featured several innovations, including a lighter-weight composite material body and the company’s now famed CAPS – Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, literally a parachute for the plane itself in emergencies.

“We were blown away by the reception,” Patrick says of the airshow crowd response.

They were blown away, too, by the demand, with some airshow attendees insisting that they take a down payment check on an aircraft they had yet to manufacture for sale.

By 1999, when the first aircraft was sold to Walt and Marianne Conley of Plymouth, Minnesota, the company already had more than 300 orders for the aircraft. The company gave back to Duluth by buying local first, working with SCS Interiors, as mentioned earlier, and working with local machine shops for parts.

Innovations continued, not surprising for a company headed by avid aviation buffs and tinkerers with, according to William, a three-pronged business plan: 1) change the world; 2) have a lot of fun; 3) make a lot of money.

The main goal was – and is – to make aviation more accessible. “Flying shouldn’t be complicated,” Patrick says. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Cirrus aircraft designs are pilot-centered with an emphasis on “comfort, safety, ease of use, ergonomics, performance – all of these come together,” Patrick says.

At its peak, just before the recession of 2008, the company employed 1,400 people in Duluth and Grand Forks. Its aircraft have sold around the world, with up to 40 percent of sales outside the United States.

But the economic collapse brought challenging times for the company, including layoffs of employees. “We had to reinvent ourselves,” says Patrick. “We had to learn how to innovate with a smaller staff of people.”

The company was sold in 2011 to China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Company, but Dale Klapmeier remains CEO and the company has kept its deep Duluth roots. The new owners brought an influx of capital and added fuel for an old ambition – production of a jet.

Cirrus had started a jet program in 2003, working out of (it’s true) a renovated garage in West Duluth. Garages are great places for starting and focusing on projects, Patrick insists. “It’s a place when you go there, you’re there to do something.”

When Cirrus rolled out its jet prototype at the Oshkosh airshow in 2013, it was déjà vu with the reaction – there are already 500 on order.

Five days before Christmas 2014, Cirrus had the maiden flight for its third jet to be used for flight testing and certification. The Cirrus Vision SF50 is on schedule to begin production in 2015, and the company has been on a hiring spree. It currently employs 625 people in Duluth, in addition to the 160 in Grand Forks, and plans to increase its workforce up to 25 percent within the next two years.

Today, says William, the company is “the envy of the aviation industry” because of the innovative aircraft, but also because of the people in the company.

 “There’s a real soul to this company,” agrees Patrick, “a passion for airplanes and for people. … It’s very infectious.”

AIRPORTS & AIRLINES

When it comes to renovations, innovations and upswings in activity, regional airports seem to be flying high.

Consider these regional airport tidbits just from 2014:

• In June, Air Choice One, began service between Ironwood, Michigan, and Chicago, logging 10 arrivals or departures per day with six to 10 passengers each flight.

• In September, the Range Regional Airport in Hibbing, Minnesota, began constructing a new $6.5 million terminal that will more than double its space from 9,000 to 21,000 square feet. Some $5 million for the project comes from federal grants and the remainder from state and local funds. The new terminal is set to open in December.

• In November, the Duluth Airport Authority opened its new $8 million parking garage and glass-enclosed connecting skyway to the new terminal building, which opened in 2013. The project added 219 public spaces plus 40 spots for corporate parking and 101 for rental cars.

• In December, the Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) Airport Development Corporation announced links to 23 additional destinations through a partnership between Porter Airlines and JetBlue in Boston. The corporation, which took over management of the airport in 1998, tallied nearly 194,800 passengers for 2014, up nearly 60 percent from 2010. In addition, the operation has invested about $28 million (Cdn.) in airport safety, function and cosmetic renovations in the last 16 years.

TRANSPORTATION LIFELINES

Air transportation can make communities that seem far from anywhere into the center of everywhere. That is truly the case for Thunder Bay, which has the largest airport operation on Lake Superior and is the third-largest airport market in Ontario.

 “We’re 18 hours (by road) from Toronto, eight hours from Winnipeg and six hours from Minneapolis,” explains Ed Schmidtke, business development manager for the Thunder Bay International Airport Authority.

It’s perhaps no wonder, then, that the airport at Lake Superior’s largest city offers 15 daily departures via three airlines to Toronto. Among all air services, it logs about 400,000 passengers in a year. While the authority itself has fewer than 40 employees, its regional economic impact affects nearly 5,000 employees and nearly $570 million in annual gross domestic product value, according to a 2011 impact study commissioned by the authority.

The airport recently began tapping another kind of power from above – Skypower harnesses the energy from 140,000 photovoltaic solar panels placed on airport grounds and produces enough energy for 15,000 homes. It employs about 100 people directly.

Thunder Bay’s airport, like the nearly 60 other large and small operations around the Lake Superior and Northland region, creates a critical link to bring in tourists, shuttle business people to and from town and offer another transportation option for goods. Thunder Bay also services medical emergencies and remote communities in the far Northwestern Ontario regions without roads. It’s also a major hub for recreational charters, transporting hunters and anglers to northern resorts and lakes.

“There are many locations north of here where the air transportation is quite literally a lifeline,” Ed says. Wasaya Airways, a financially challenged service run by a group of 10 First Nations in the area, exists to transport food, clothing and the full range of needed medical and everyday supplies to more than 25 communities without road access.

Bearskin Airlines, meanwhile, has both charter and regular service to regional Ontario and nearby Manitoba destinations. Ron Hell, director of marketing and sales for Bearskin, says the company operates about 75 flights daily to 12 destinations.

“We are primarily a business airline; we carry customers intra-Ontario for business reasons,” Ron says. However, the company does donate about 1,000 flights a year for people in remote communities who cannot afford a ticket to Thunder Bay for medical services. In 2010, the company received a Hope Air Outstanding Philanthropist Award for that program.

Servicing a remote yet vast region with low population – villages as few as 500 people – creates a challenge for an airline. “When I think about the history of Bearskin and I think about all the airlines that have come and gone – and there have been lots – it’s related to the fact that the demand is very limited,” Ron says. “The customer continues to have high expectations for frequency of service; if the flight schedule doesn’t meet their needs, they would just as soon drive.”

Bearskin, entering its 52nd year and with about 200 employees, has used a model that matches the right-sized airplane for the most efficient service. It operates just one airplane model, the 19-seat Fairchild Metroliner. “This single type allows us to keep our costs as low as possible.”

SMALL CAN BE A BIG DEAL

Maintaining service to small areas can be a challenge, but it can also be a big opportunity, says Shane Storz, CEO, president and co-owner of Air Choice One with his mother and sister. It recently started service to Ironwood, Michigan. “What we’re trying to do is build a regional commuter airline.”

The 36-year-old airline opened a regional hub in Chicago five years ago to expand its market into underserved areas. Ironwood seemed a perfect match for them. They are aided in a start-up there through the U.S. Essential Air Service, a federal program championed by the late Rep. James Oberstar and established to subsidize air service to rural communities abandoned by airlines after deregulation in the 1980s. Several local communities benefit from EAS, including Houghton/Hancock and Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan and Chisholm/Hibbing and International Falls in Minnesota.

Some question the efficacy of the program, which can compete with unsubsidized air service at locations like Marquette and Duluth, but Shane says Air Choice One expects to establish self-sustaining routes. Its current EAS Ironwood contract runs out in 2016. “The ultimate dream for Air Choice One is to build that area under the program, EAS, to jump-start it so when the program dissolves or goes away, we have a market that we can still support with larger air.”

That dream may be possible, even in Ironwood with its 5,100 population, because the U.P. is a favorite Chicago vacation getaway. “There’s a wealth of travel from the Chicago area,” Shane says. “We just attended a snowmobile and ski expo with 10,000 folks. It was just an unbelievable response.”

The airline service does have quirks connected to its size. Its brochure encourages passengers to forgo checked baggage and keep carry-on bags modest. It also suggests going to the bathroom before you get on the plane, since the short hop and confined space make a mid-flight break uncomfortable.

One astonishing thing for Shane has been the preferred departure time from Ironwood: the 4:40 a.m. flight that arrives early enough in Chicago to avoid heavy airport traffic.

AIRPORTS LOOKING UP

 Small airports face as many challenges as small airlines. The Range Regional Airport in Hibbing found it benefited from the economic downturn in 2008. Ready with a plan for a runway renovation, it was able to tap $4.2 million in federal stimulus funding to resurface two runways.

The modest airport offers 12 round-trip flights weekly to Minneapolis via Delta Airlines and a fairly regular round-trip charter every four to six weeks to Laughlin, Nevada, via Sun Country. Shaun Germolus, airport manager, is working on a similar charter to Biloxi, Mississippi, for winter. The less-traveled destinations all benefit from the EAS funding.

Shaun is most excited about the new terminal project, for which construction – or rather destruction of the old terminal – started in fall 2014. The new terminal, with its much-expanded waiting and security area, is estimated to open by the end of 2015. “It literally puts us into the 21st century. That’s what our airline expects and, quite frankly, our passengers as well.”

While regular commercial air service is important for a community, an airport’s value can also be measured by the private aircraft it hosts. In the case of Hibbing, for example, company officials from Menards regularly fly in to check on a new store there. Shaun believes companies count airport accessibility when deciding to open in a new location. “It’s one of those things considered when companies look to relocate or grow.” The Range Regional Airport regularly gets private planes from mining companies sent out of New York and Ohio, he adds.

The Duluth Airport has had opportunities of a much different kind, upgrading its terminal and Transportation Security Administration accommodations while blending into a rapidly growing aviation industry market.

Director Tom Werner has seen many changes in his 15 years with the Duluth Airport Authority. A new terminal building officially opened in 2013. Although the building kept the same square footage as the old two-story terminal, a “great room” layout on both sides of security evokes a more open, airy atmosphere. “This building feels so much bigger,” Tom says.

The airport hosts two airlines that fly daily: United Airlines to Chicago and Delta Airlines to Minneapolis and Detroit. Allegiant Air operates twice weekly to Las Vegas. One of the fastest-growing segments of the airport’s service has not been for commercial airlines. Nearby Cirrus Aircraft regularly hosts its owners, who fly in with their own planes and land at the Duluth airport. The airport also has become a convenient stop for private planes from foreign countries, Tom says. “It’s the great circle route, from Europe to the West Coast. They refuel here and clear customs here.”

The airport authority has a staff of 21 full-time people and hosts the offices of the TSA, airlines and services like rental cars. It recently became the permanent home for Lake Superior College’s Center for Aviation, where students learn airplane maintenance and piloting of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft.

The authority leases airport land, but the Duluth Seaway Port Authority manages the 100 acres of the Duluth Airpark, which hosts about 40 companies with nearly 700 employees.

One pending challenge for the Duluth Airport Authority involves a small airport under its umbrella that caters to private aircraft and seaplanes. Sky Harbor Airport at the end of Park Point is favored by private plane owners who might summer in Canal Park. It’s also the best local option for many seaplanes. However, pine trees have grown up around the 76-year-old airport, blocking clear entry to its single 3,500-foot runway and imperiling its state license. The old-growth trees are part of a University of Minnesota study. No alternatives seem pleasing, from cutting the trees to filling in part of Superior Bay to add runway, but decisions will have to be made this year.

In terms of challenges for regional airports, you’ll hear a lot of talk about chickens and eggs when you ask about the future.

“In order for Duluth to grow its air service mix,” says Tom, “we need to demonstrate demand to the air carriers. That’s a critical piece to this … it’s chicken and egg.”

In other words, to get more air service, you need more customers, but to attract customers, you need increased service.

“It’s demand-driven, like any other service,” echoes Ed in Thunder Bay. So when local people drive the six hours to Minneapolis before taking a flight elsewhere, it’s a future opportunity lost to Thunder Bay, he believes. It all comes down to a simple philosophy, says Ed. “Buy local, fly local.”

THE ASTRONAUTS

You might expect a child born near the shores of Lake Superior to dream of seafaring, but two locally raised adventurers spent time looking up above the water as well as out across it. Roberta Bondar, a native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Jeffrey Williams, who was born in Superior and grew up in Winter, Wisconsin, put the “space” into our region’s aerospace connections.

Dr. Roberta Bondar

Dr. Roberta Bondar, a neurologist, became Canada’s first woman astronaut 23 years ago this January when she hitched a ride on the Discovery space shuttle in 1992. She got in 129 rotations around the Earth during her eight days in orbit, plenty of time to look down at the view below her.

Roberta started by looking up at the sky. “To be able to go out to the shores of Lake Superior and look up, and to see all these stars. It’s the wonder of the child who looks up and says, ‘What is that?’ and ‘Why is that?’ I must say, I can’t remember a time when I did not want to go into space.”

She was hooked from her first plane ride with her uncle, Arthur Bondar, a Sault Ste. Marie pharmacist, now retired. “He was a pilot and he took me out and I got bitten. It was a different perspective.”

Even a short conversation with Roberta gives a sense of her personality and precision. Queried about when she got her pilot’s license, Roberta asks for a moment and searches out her logbook.

“It was 1968, September 19.” Pausing for calculations, she adds, “I was 22.”

Her early solos were short, but a bird’s-eye view of Lake Superior expanded her vision. “I loved seeing Harmony Bay and Batchawana Bay, seeing the relationships along the shoreline. … Those days were really important to me in understanding that there was a different view to the world.”

Roberta credits her work philosophy to Girl Guides of Canada and family camping. “Focus on the task. If you don’t … a lot of energies drift away from you.”

Her priorities always are “safety, security and being able to accomplish professionally what you are doing.” She adds a personal illustration, tied to photography in the desert. “If you have a cactus thorn stuck in your leg, ignore it until you have completed the tasks.”

Roberta, a true eclectic spirit, has earned a slew of honors for her achievements in aerospace, neurology and philanthropy. She received Canada’s highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada. She’s been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame and in 2003 was named among North America’s best explorers by Time magazine. Her hometown has a park, pavilion and marina named for her and memorabilia in the Bushplane Heritage Centre. She even has her own star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto.

Balancing all that attention hasn’t been hard; her parents, Edward and Mildred, gave her and her older sister, Barbara, a good foundation. “My mother always prepared us to be good leaders and humble leaders. … We tend to embellish the role of astronauts in society. I believe we’re privileged to go on taxpayers’ dollars to look at the planet (in a new way). We are not there to make our ego the reason why we have gone. … It’s about trying to make life better because of what we have done.”

During her decade at NASA, Roberta studied space medicine and headed a research team looking for connections between how astronauts recover from microgravity and how to help those with neurological illnesses like Parkinson’s disease. Neurology attracted her as an explorer interested in the mechanical as well as the ephemeral – after all, the nervous system is, she explains, the “wiring diagram of the body.”

“Everything in the body is dependent on the nervous system, with very few exceptions.” This applies even to her newest hobby – golf. “It’s all about neurophysiology, it’s all about muscles and nerves.”

Roberta holds four degrees up to her doctor of medicine at McMaster University and has 24 honorary degrees. A lifelong explorer, she believes curiosity is only the first step of any journey. “You can be curious and sit in a chair. One has to engage in society, to be part of society.”

After leaving the space agency in 1992, she’s concentrated on her photography and has four books published. She uses her work and energies to raise environmental awareness through the Roberta Bondar Foundation.

It would seem that Roberta has accomplished several lifetimes of achievements and perhaps could not add one more. Reflecting on her early days soaring in a plane beside Lake Superior, though, she does admit, “I think I would have been a great barnstorm pilot.”

Col. Jeffrey Williams

You might say life on the family farm near Winter, Wisconsin, gave Jeffrey Williams all of the basics he’d need for traveling into space, where he helped to build and then lived on the International Space Station.

“As you know, Winter is a remote area in the middle of nowhere. I grew up on a farm, a dairy farm that my grandfather had carved out after he moved out from Sweden. … You learn a lot of basic things there.”

There’s a certain work ethic – those cows need milking daily – that translates well to a limited, remote location like a space station. “When you grow up on a farm environment, especially a small family farm, you don’t waste what you have. You’re fairly prudent how you use supplies.”

A boy with sky-high aspirations also learns a bit of do-it-yourself skill. “I made my own gunpowder and made rockets,” Jeffrey recalls, then admits with amusement to a few “failures on the launch pad.”

Jeffrey has traveled a long, long, long way from the family farm. Now a retired colonel after 27 years in the U.S. Army, he’s online as a backup astronaut for a flight scheduled this March and as a primary participant for a March 2016 launch. Either would mean one year on the space station, adding to the year or so Jeffrey already has logged on three space flights.

Before getting into outer space, Jeffrey first made the journey from life in Winter to school at West Point, taking advantage of opportunities that his father, Lloyd, a high school guidance counselor, learned from military recruiters. At West Point he connected to flying and to parachuting. Ultimately, that lead to his becoming first a test pilot, then an astronaut.

The first, a 10-day journey in the space shuttle Atlantis in 2000, included a seven-hour space walk for Jeffrey while working on the International Space Station.

On his second (2006) and third (2010) flights, Jeffrey was flight engineer and later commander on Russian Soyuz vessels launched from Kazakhstan. He spent about six months on the station each voyage, logging 12 additional hours of space walking on the first deployment.

When Jeffrey goes into space in 2016 to deploy for a year, he will become one of the oldest (at age 58) astronauts, and with the longest total time in space (nearly two years).

“I’m in the senior category,” he says. There was one American on a short shuttle flight who was 60, but Jeffrey will be the oldest American on a long-duration flight. One Russian astronaut on the space station did turn 60 there.

The mindset for a long stay in space definitely is different than his first 10-day flight, Jeffrey says. “One’s like a vacation and the other is like a move.”

Adapting to weightlessness can be a challenge, although he prepared by talking with other astronauts and by riding on “The Vomit Comet” cargo airflight that for 15 to 20 seconds in a free fall can simulate weightlessness.

Jeffrey knows there is a cost on his body for so much time in space. “We understand a lot, but there are things we don’t fully understand. … Bone loss is a very significant concern for the long-term health of crew members, similar to osteoporosis,” he says. Astronauts also are measured for exposure to radiation, working under daily, yearly and lifetime exposure guidelines in place for nuclear power plant workers or some hospital workers.

When approached, Jeffrey originally declined a last voyage into space. He has grandchildren and also wanted to spare his wife, Anne-Marie, another long separation. But he did feel an urge for one more flight, something Anne-Marie knew. “She finally said to me, ‘If you think you need to go do this or if they need you to go do this, I’m willing.’”

Now, though, she jokes, “Did I really agree to this?”

During his last trip to the space station and back here on Earth, Jeffrey enjoys interacting with students.

“When I talk to young folks, I tell them a lot of times we’ll hear the mantra of ‘you can do anything you want.’ That’s a lie, really. I’ll be as bold to say that. We can’t do anything we want, we can’t be anything we want.”

You must have skills, desire, ability and opportunity, he tells students, “and those things aren’t just handed to you.”

Given that, Jeffrey encourages students to make their dreams happen. “Develop your abilities, explore your abilities and then look for opportunities to use them. And don’t cut yourself short. Look beyond your horizon, always look over your horizon.”

Perhaps some of the students who hear Jeffrey will find their horizon expand from a small Wisconsin town to beyond the edge of the world.

SOME HIGH-FLYING REGIONAL BUSINESSES

The Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior are getting a reputation nationally, according to Tom Werner, executive director of the Duluth Airport Authority.

It’s the kind of reputation worth having – a place where the aviation industry has taken off.

With the announcement late in 2014 that Lake Superior College would create its Center for Advanced Aviation at the airport, Tom pointed to the center as “growing local talent” for aircraft mechanics and for private and professional pilots. The new center uses the popular Cirrus SR20 as its main training aircraft.

“Our aviation sector, as it’s grown today, is one of the (industry’s) centers of gravity,” Tom says. “We are being viewed nationally in that regard.”

Indeed, in the Twin Ports and elsewhere around the Lake, aviation-related enterprises have been on the upswing.

Besides Cirrus, one of the larger employers in the aviation industry opened a branch in Duluth in November 2012. The aviation service company AAR established an MRO – maintenance, repair and overhaul – operation in an abandoned Northwest Airlines maintenance hangar at the Duluth airport. The operation has grown rapidly and mainly services Air Canada aircraft. Early in 2014, the company signed a five-year agreement with Air Canada and increased its workforce by about 40 people to 350 employees.

“When AAR first came to Duluth, the goal was to make this facility fully operational,” Dany Kleiman, AAR aviation services group vice president, said in a September 2013 press release. “In less than a year, we’ve earned the confidence and trust of the customer and have demonstrated that we are committed to doing business in Duluth over the long term. I attribute our success to a combination of factors: a welcoming government, business and civic community, a great customer in Air Canada and a talented team of aircraft maintenance technicians.”

Several area businesses have grown as offshoots of Cirrus or have added services needed by Cirrus and other aviation operations.

In 2010, Alan Klapmeier, a co-founder of Cirrus, opened a Superior manufacturing plant for a new aircraft company. Kestrel Aircraft is developing an all-composite turboprop plane that seats six to eight people. Just before Christmas 2014, the company announced its partnership with a supplier of advanced composite materials to use a carbon-fiber material in its planes. The plant employs about 75 people.

Other Duluth-based companies show the variety of services that can develop around the aviation industry.

You might call Monaco Air Duluth a  concierge for private plane travelers. Established in 2005, the full-service fixed base operator (FBO) serves private and military planes at the airport, offering everything from arrangements for customs checks and plane maintenance to coffee and cookies for waiting guests. It links to Lake Superior College’s flight school and plane rentals.

Sinex Solutions sells high-tech software management tools for maintenance of maritime, railroad, aviation and property assets (i.e. trains, planes, ships and buildings). It was started in 2004 by Barry Sinex, a 25-year veteran of the aviation industry.

SCS Interiors designs interior décor and accessories for aircraft, automobiles, trucks, trains and other commercial interiors. Originally Brigham Upholstery, it added its aerospace focus more than 15 years ago when working on a prototype for the first Cirrus planes.

Ikonics Corporation, a 58-year-old photochemistry company that develops products such as coated films, in June 2014 announced a $500,000 investment in making its aerospace industry products. “After conversations with major customers and manufacturers in the commercial jet engines business, we believe there is an opportunity for very significant business for Ikonics beginning in late 2014 and ramping up in 2015 and beyond,” CEO Bill Ulland said at the time. Ikonics has logged four quarters of consecutive record sales, employs about 70 people and may break ground this fall for a Morgan Park manufacturing site.

Other areas around the Lake also are seeing a growth of aviation-related enterprise. Thunder Bay, long an aviation hub for the region and for Canada, has its own single turboprop plane to tout – its airport hosts exclusive Canadian sales and servicing of the Pilatus PC-12 and by 2017 the PC-24 jet (photo above), Swiss-manufactured aircraft. An advance vision system for the PC-12 was just certified in the fall by Transport Canada. The Thunder Bay Center was established in 1997 as Pilatus Canada. It employs 50 people locally and about 50 additional around the country.

Robert Arnone, president and CEO of Pilatus Canada, says Thunder Bay, while smaller than many Canadian cities, makes the perfect location for an aviation operation. Plus it was home to the investors, like himself. “It was strategically located in the middle of the country. It makes sense. Aviation being what it is, it’s portable, so to speak.”

Another Thunder Bay business, the 28-year-old Thunder Bay Aviation Ltd., which employs 13 people, provides repair services and parts. It even has an online option to view seat cover colors for a DeHavilland Twin Otter (a versatile plane with an ability for short landings and takeoffs and popular for cargo and passenger hauls).

Find a listing of regional airports here.

WATERBOMBING

Waterbombing of wildfires from helicopters or planes has become standard procedure, but the story is that the practice started by the shores of Lake Superior in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Although he wasn’t a pilot, Jim Scotland (in photo), now a volunteer with the Canadian

Bushplane Heritage Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, is familiar with development of waterbombing. He was a radio operator for the Ontario government and sent the pilots out to fires.

Local pilot Tommy Cook is credited with refining, perhaps even developing, waterbombing in the early 1950s. “He had been in the Air Force during the war (World War II) and took this waterbombing technique under his wing,” Jim says.

Waterbombing first used water bags – like water balloons on a big scale. The bags were brought to the fire and released via a conveyor belt inside the plane.

Next came rollover tanks on the seaplane floats. Planes scooped water directly from local lakes, giving a faster turnaround. Eventually planes were built specifically for firefighting. The Canadair CL-215, “a huge yellow aircraft, was designed specifically for forest firefighting,” Jim says. “It had the ability to pick up water from the belly of the aircraft, and I mean a lot of water.”

Carrying capacity for firefighting planes grew from about one bathtub full with those waterbags to 39 bathtubs per load for the new planes.

Today, in places like drought-stricken California, planes and helicopters deliver a red flame retardant. Although that product was used for a time locally, in this water-rich area pilots returned to using local waterbodies as their firefighting aids. “This was ridiculous, when the fire was probably right next to a large lake,” Jim says.

The Bushplane Heritage Centre annually celebrates Bushplane Days and demonstrates waterbombing (bottom) on St. Marys River. 

AIR EVENTS & ATTRACTIONS

Duluth Air & Balloon Shows

Le Festival des Montgolfières à Duluth (above) will land for the third time at Bayfront Park September 18-20. The hot-air balloon festival produced by Kernz and Kompany will double the activities and exhibitors, according to Ryan Kern. The company also produces the biannual Duluth Air and Aviation Expo. In 2016, it expects as many as 75,000 people to view the air displays and to mingle among exhibitors at the Duluth airport. Famed flyers such as the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and Canadian Air Force Snowbirds have performed. (DuluthBalloonFestival.com, DuluthAirshow.com)

Duluth Airport Museum

A mixed bag of memorabilias large and small featuring aviation, World War II or other military items can be found at a little-known museum on the Duluth airport campus. Run by the Commemorative Air Force Squadron 101, it occupies six rooms in a hangar, organized into Pacific Theatre, European Theatre, Flight Simulator Room, Cold War, Local History and Aircraft Design displays. Among the cool artifacts are aircraft and vehicles, vintage flight simulators, a Norden Bombsight (once top secret stuff) and other nifty items. Contact the CAF for hours: caflss101@gmail.com.

Bushplane Heritage Centre

The Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre in Sault Ste. Marie is a unique collection of vintage planes, interactive exhibits and films that are entertaining and informative. The centre’s mission is to preserve and promote the story of Canada’s critical bushplane industry and bushpilot heritage. It covers, too, the special role of firefighting by plane. Astronaut Roberta Bondar, born in the Sault, has donated a number of items from her collection to the centre as well. The centre has another intriguing and valuable resource. Many retirees connected to flying or bushplanes donate time to maintain the plane collection and often will chat about their experiences. The centre also sponsors several events. (www.BushPlane.com)

HIGH-FLYING HEROES

Richard Ira Bong, Ace of Aces

A native of tiny Poplar, Wisconsin, Richard I. Bong became a national war hero during World War II for shooting down 40 Japanese planes during 200 missions. It’s a record that still holds today as the most enemy planes downed by one pilot, making him the U.S. Ace of Aces. In August 1945, six months after he was ordered home to help the war fundraising effort and after he married his sweetheart, Marge, Richard died while testing a new fighter jet, the Lockheed P-80.

Richard Ira Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior displays a Lockheed P-38 Lightning just like one that he flew and named for his sweetheart and later wife, Marge (in photo). The center honors Bong, but has expanded its mission to honor service members from all conflicts and all military branches. (www.bvhcenter.org)

Superior’s airport also is named for the local flying ace, as is a bridge connecting Duluth and Superior.

Joe Gomer, Tuskegee Airman

Although Joseph P. Gomer was not a native to the Lake Superior region, he did choose to live here until his death in 2013, and the Duluth International Airport features a life-sized bronze statue honoring him. Joe was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, African-American pilots who flew P-47s and P-51s in a special unit during World War II. Joe flew 68 missions over North Africa, Italy and Germany. After the war, he stayed in the Air Force and did aircraft maintenance and missile work, becoming a nuclear weapons technician. He later worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Minnesota. He was among a group of Tuskegee Airmen invited to the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009.

Our fighting flyers

It’s nice to have the crews of the 148th Fighter Wing of the Minnesota Air National Guard home in Duluth these days after seeing tours of duty overseas. And it was an especially proud time in 2009 when the 148th was presented with the distinguished Raytheon Trophy, designating it as “the best fighter unit in the U.S. Air Force.”

A fun fact for 2014: the 148th hosted the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds in July when the precision pilots did a “flyover” at the 2014 Major League Baseball All-Star game at Target Field in Minneapolis.

The current fighter wing harkens to a squadron formed by 50 men in September 1948 – the first Air National Guard unit in Duluth, the 179th Fighter Squadron. The squadron came under command of the 133rd  Fighter Wing in the Twin Cities in 1960 when the 148th Fighter Wing was created.

Located today at the Duluth International Airport, the 148th takes advantage of a 10,000-foot-runway for its F-16 jets (tail seen in photo).

The 148th Fighter Wing actually joins a long line of air military service in our region.

The Lake Superior basin was once a critical part of the Strategic Air Command system.

 Even before the Cold War, though, U.S. Air Force bases sprang up as protection for the Soo Locks during World War II. Most of the U.S. Air Force presence is gone, though the air fields have served as the local community airports and other operations, even a prison.

There were at least three SAC-connected bases: the Kincheloe Air Force Base established in 1945, 20 miles southwest of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and closed in 1977; K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base started in 1941 as a civilian airport and then became a military operation in the 1950s before being officially closed in 1995; and the Duluth Air Force Base established in 1948 and closed in 1983.