Page 15 - Volume 15 Number 12

Rob Swenson with his Beech Duke B60Keeping Current In The SystemAlaska pilot number three, Rob Swenson, owns a 1980 Beech Duke B60, a Cessna 185 on floats or skis and a Piper Super Cub on floats, and he recently bought a T-6 Texan warbird. Swenson has had a long and colorful history in aviation, beginning with listening to his father’s service stories; the elder Swenson was a B-24 pilot in World War II. “That’s the reason I acquired the T-6”, Swenson said. “I wanted to preserve a piece of aviation history, honoring his memory with an airplane like the ones those guys trained in.”A native of northern Minnesota, Swenson attended college in the Twin Cities, then joined his father and brother in buying an upper Minnesota FBO that was using a single Cessna 421 in a scheduled air taxi service. That was the foundation of Mesaba Airlines, one of the first commuter airlines; it carried 6,000 passengers in its first year of operation and grew from there, using Beech 99s, Fokker F27s and Fairchild Metroliners. After 17 years, Mesaba was sold in 1995, but Swenson had already gone on to help start AirTran Airways in Orlando. AirTran was eventuallyDECEMBER 2011TWIN & TURBINE • 13