Bob Collins
A lot of local airports get FAA funding — which also makes it harder for communities to close their airports — but Silver Bay didn’t have enough pilots and planes left to earn the money.
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MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Aviation
Chad J. Rygwall, 47, and his wife, Jill, 48, of Princeton, Minn., died when their Cessna 172 struck power lines and plunged into the river. The National Transportation Safety Board said they likely never saw the lines, which were below the tree line, and the pilot may have been blinded by a setting sun.
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In a book of women who fly, Tammie Jo Shults recalled her senior year in high school in 1979 when an airman — a retired colonel — gave a lecture on aviation.
She was the only girl to show up and the colonel asked her if she was lost.
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The Cranky Flier — Brett Snyder — today gives the airline his Cranky Jackass Award because it abandoned its customers in another country, and is still trying to talk its way out of responsibility for doing so. Read more →
If a kid wants something bad enough, he’ll do just about anything. Seth Holloway really wanted to fly. So he raised chickens and sold eggs. Read more →
It’s hard not to think that Sun Country’s latest problems are a sign that the once hometown airline is descending into the abyss of no-frills airlines, which is notable only because Sun Country was once known for customer service.
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When I first passed along the story of Douglas Ward, of Mondovi, Wis., in 2014, I noted that this is the kind of picture I could look at for hours.
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What was left of a Douglas DC-47 was discovered in Wisconsin in 2015. It wasn’t just an old plane, though. It was “That’s All, Brother!”, the plane that led the D-Day invasion.
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It’s probably cold comfort to the people aboard all of those planes in blue that the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport is officially ‘open’ during the blizzard-like conditions this afternoon. Read more →
Judging by the track of the final flight of Delta’s passenger 747s into Minneapolis St. Paul on Wednesday afternoon, it must have been a breathtaking moment to witness. Read more →
The last regularly scheduled Delta 747 passenger flight made its final stop in Detroit this morning and, as will be the case tomorrow when a 747 lands in Minneapolis, fans showed up for the goodbye. Read more →
Northwest Airlines has been relegated to the ash heap of history, but it made a bit of a proud return to the nation’s consciousness on Sunday when Norman Lyle Prouse told his story to CBS’ Sunday Morning. Read more →
Sure, go ahead and call Mike Hughes all the names he’s probably heard before but we’re here today to celebrate his passion, an antidote to America’s pervasive can’t-do spirit.
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Everything that’s wrong with bro-talk radio can pretty much be summed up with a Boston sportscaster’s rant against Roy Halladay on the day after Halladay — about as decent a person as ever existed — crashed his plane into the Gulf of Mexico and died. Read more →