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Airmotive
began life in barnstorming days
By JIM SLOAN
Staff Writer, Brainerd Daily Dispatch
You wouldn’t know it from its modern office at
the Brainerd-Crow Wing County Airport, but
Airmotive Enterprises began life as an old-time
barnstorming outfit.
 The firm, one of the oldest residents at the
airport, is actually the end product of four
companies, the first of which began at the end
of World War II.
John Riedl Sr., the man who began it all, said
the business began with State’s Flying Service,
Inc., in Minneapolis in 1936—a company endowed
with one airplane and a novel idea.
“When we were still State’s Flying Service we
had a sign that said ‘Bar Harbor Tonight,’ a
neon sign mounted under the wings on an old
monoplane,” Riedl said. “I flew that every
night.”
During the day, the sign was detached, and the
plane was used for other student instruction and
“air rides,” Riedl said.
“We barnstormed,” he recalled of those early
days. “If we couldn’t pick up enough business,
somebody would fly the plane to some farmer’s
field and we’d give people rides,” he said.
Chartering—the modern term is “air taxi”—was
also done, but only informally, he said. “If
somebody wanted to go someplace, we’d fly ‘em,”
he said.
Riedl next formed Heywood Gull Lake Airport
Corporation in 1946 at the private field in
Nisswa. “I had three partners, two Northwest
Airline captains and a lumberman from
Minneapolis, who had purchased it while I was in
the service, and I was in on it,” Riedl said.
That firm, Riedl said, held the original
contract for pipeline patrol with Minnesota
Power and Light Company.
When he moved to Brainerd in 1954 and became
airport manager here, Riedl formed Crow Wing
Aviation and also operated Mid-State Air Taxi,
both out of the Brainerd airport.
The three companies, he said, eventually became
Airmotive Enterprises in 1960—a firm which is
now owned and operated by Riedl’s son, Assistant
Airport Manager John Riedel Jr., who purchased
it from his father in 1981.
When John Riedl Jr. joined the firm in 1966, it
consisted of two pilots, himself and Morris
Wareing, who had joined Crow Wing Aviation in
1957. Today, Airmotive Enterprises boasts five
planes, two full-time and two part-time pilots,
two line service personnel and two mechanics.
The firm leases two offices and a maintenance
shop at the airport, along with a ramp area and
fuel dispensing equipment, Riedl said.
Among the services offered by the firm are air
taxis, flight training, power line patrol, fire
detection, agricultural photography and aircraft
maintenance.
The firm leases two offices and a maintenance
shop at the airport, along with a ramp area and
fuel dispensing equipment, Riedl said.
The firm is known as an aviation services
company. The old name, Fixed Base Operator, had
its roots in the days of the barnstormers.
“Most of the flying was barnstorming, and nobody
really was at one place,” Riedl said. So, when
companies were formed that had permanent bases,
they became known as “Fixed Base” operators.
At one time, he said, the company flew about
20,000 miles each year of pipeline patrol.
Flying with an observer at about 200 feet, the
pilot searched for the telltale mark of a
pipeline running below ground in a field, marked
by an area of greener grass due to the line’s
warmth. The observer looked for construction on
or near the line, leaks (visible because they
killed the grass), downed marker posts or
washouts near river crossings.
Power line patrol, Riedl said, is done by the
pilot alone. At a scant 25 to 50 feet above the
power line, the pilot looked for shot-out
insulators, burned power poles, loose guy wires
and even woodpecker holes.
The firm now does only about four hours of such
work annually, Riedl said, on an emergency
standby basis.
Airmotive pilots also fly fire detection for the
DNR forestry department in the spring and fall,
flying an assigned route and radioing in the
location when smoke is spotted.
The firm has a Cessna 310 twin-engine craft and
a Piper Turbo Arrow single-engine plane for air
taxi, and three planes available for pilot
training and rental, a Piper Warrior, Piper
Tomahawk and a Cessna 152.
Airmotive trains about 25 pilots a year, and
provides training for private, commercial and
instrument pilots, in addition to certified
flight instructor training and multi-engine
rating.
The mainstay of the business, however, is air
taxi, under which about 30,000 miles are logged
each year. The firm is licensed to operate in
the continental United States and Canada, but
does most of its charter work in the five-state
area.
And, like most businesses in a tourist area, the
firm does most of its business in the summer
months.
“In the winter, we sit here and there won’t be
one plane on the flight line,” Riedl said. But,
he said, “The air traffic in the summertime, for
three months, is 15 times greater than in the
winter months.”
Flying is becoming “more and more popular,”
Riedl said. Airmotive charges a fee for
overnight parking of transient planes, and
serves commuters who fly in on weekends to stay
with families who live here during the summer,
corporate personnel flying in for conventions
and meetings and race fans here for a weekend at
Brainerd International Raceway (BIR).
“There will be 15, 20 cars left in the parking
lot here for running back and forth between the
airport and summer cabins,” Riedl said. |
