RUSH CITY, MINN. – There is something to say about learning to fly in a small, rural community versus a big city. There is very little air traffic at a small town airport, so getting down the basics, practicing touch and goes without having to worry about talking on the radio, and executing instrument approaches on your own without radar vectors, may be easier and more efficient. Flying in large cities with air traffic control services and dense traffic is undoubtedly the real world and important to learn at some point during one’s training. But to start, a quiet country airport makes a lot of sense.
Obviously with a smaller population in rural America, the local flight school needs to work harder at recruiting students. But the kid down the road is probably more likely to walk into the office and say, “sign me up” because everyone lives within close proximity to the airport, and everyone probably attends the annual fly-in breakfast. The local airport is part of the fabric of a rural community.
Hawk Aviation, Inc. is the fixed base operation in Rush City, Minnesota, and Mark Nelson and his wife, Carrie, own the company. Hawk Aviation offers flight training for Sport, Private, Instrument, Commercial, Multi-Engine, Instructor, and Airline Transport Pilot certificates and ratings. It also offers ground school every 12 weeks to help students prepare for their knowledge tests. Hawk Aviation currently has five instructors on staff. Flight training, airman testing, and charter are the primary sources of revenue. Hawk Aviation has a pilot shop that carries VFR and IFR charts for the whole country. Carrie is the Testing Center Supervisor and helps out in the office when she is not working as a medical transcriptionist.
Mark and Carrie both grew up in the Rush City area. Their grand parents settled in the area in the early 1900s, and Mark continues to farm the family farm of 300 acres and milks 60 cows.
Mark Nelson’s brother-in-law introduced him to flying. “My first flight was bumpy and I didn’t like it much,” Nelson said. “But after a couple of lessons, I really started to enjoy the training.” Nelson is an instrument and multi-engine flight instructor. He started taking flying lessons in 1993 and bought his first airplane – a Cessna 172 Skyhawk – in 1996.
Hawk Aviation, Inc. now owns two Cessna 172s and one Cessna 150, which may not have all of the bells and whistles that new aircraft do, but as Nelson says, “they are affordable!” The C-172s rent for $100.00 wet, and the C-150 for $80.00.
Construction of the current FBO office began on September 10, 2001. The World Trade Center came down the next day and flying came to a standstill.
“I began to wonder if this was going to work out based on the events of September 11,” Nelson said. “But it did”
Also, Hawk Aviation got a pipeline patrol contract shortly before 9-11, and Nelson and another pilot were allowed to continue to fly their route between Mason City, Iowa and Duluth, Minnesota, while other traffic was grounded at that time. Shortly afterwards, instrument flight training was allowed, so that portion of Hawk’s flight school was up and running again. Nelson averages between 25-30 hours a week instructing in addition to other commercial flying.
The recent economic downturn has not affected the farm-based communities as much as it has urban communities, so flight training has remained about the same, and you cannot find any airport with gas any less expensive than at Rush City – about $2.00 a gallon less than most for self service.
On average, Hawk Aviation has 15-20 students in various stages of training and they attract students from a l50-mile radius. There are 75 active pilots at Rush City, so there’s a good base for recurrent training, biennial flight reviews, and advanced ratings.
With 50 planes on the field, Rush City Regional Airport (ROS) has one paved runway (16/34), which is 4400 X 75 feet. A second runway (7/25), 3200 X 75 feet, is in the final planning stages. The airport has GPS and NDB approaches, Automatic Weather Observation Service (AWOS), and a Ground Communications Outlet (GCO) to Flight Service. The airport manager is Don Swanson.
Mark and Carrie Nelson have three kids – all age 13. Would you believe triplets? Kevin, Kayla and Kyle.
Between the airport and the farm, it would suit Mark and Carrie Nelson just fine if life stayed the same. They are not looking to grow much because the more they grow, the less actual instruction and flying Mark would be doing, and they would both be managing people, rather than teaching people to fly.
So if you think you would like a relaxed, country approach to learning how to fly or to stay current, give Mark and Carrie Nelson at Hawk Aviation a call: 320-358-3665 (www.hawk-aviation.com). Accelerated training is available for the asking, and I am sure they would get you a room in the local hotel, and treat you to some of Rush City’s finest dining!
