COLUMN: Carillon Flashback – August 2, 2012 – Well-rounded pilot is kept busy in ag industry

When Rick Kornelson quit building airplanes a few of years ago, it seemed perfectly logical to him that manufacturing grain augers could be a perfect substitute use for a converted hangar at his Ridge Road acreage southwest of Steinbach.

Kornelson flies water bombers to fight forest fires, does crop spraying, and even ferries shipments of jet fuel up north for the medi-vac unit, when winter roads are delayed and supplies run short. It’s not like the man needs to look for things to fill in his spare time. But, he says, he likes to keep busy and starting a new enterprise at 56 doesn’t worry him at all.

“I’ve still got a few years left on my best-before date.”

It struck him as a rare opportunity when John Lepp, who owns the water bomber Kornelson flies, brought up the subject of manufacturing a 40-foot truck-loading auger to work in conjunction with a grain loading system his other company manufactures.

Springland Manufacturing needed an auger that would be able to keep up with its under-floor sweep system in their bins. Springland developed a prototype of a portable truck-loading auger six or seven years ago, but dropped it, choosing to continue to specialize in the under-floor bin units.

Kornelson suggested to Lepp that because he was no longer building airplanes, Springland should let him manufacture the auger. Kornelson hired an engineer and spent the next two-and-a-half years in research and development to come up with a marketable product.

This portable extension for Springland’s unique loading system has been prototyped, tested, tweaked, adjusted, tweaked some more, adjusted some more, and was finally put on display at Western Canada’s largest agricultural trade show in Regina, in June.

There is no question the system works, and works well. Fifty-five units have been produced by Kornelson’s crew and are out doing the job on large farms. Hutterite colonies have tested the auger in live work and their feedback has resulted in modifications to a more ergonomic, efficient, and safer final model.

In spite of his enthusiastic endorsement of the new auger, Kornelson says he is not involved in sales. He’s leaving that up to Springland’s marketing team.

Kornelson will continue to operate his crop sprayer out of the Steinbach airport, which is also his home base for water-bombing operations, shifting northward as the need arises.

Kornelson points out that his role in fighting forest fires comes in the dropping of 800-gallon loads of fire-retardant. He works on the same fires as the water bombers, usually in teams of four airplanes, he says.

While fighting the fire in the Sandilands earlier this year, the three water-bombers got their water from White Mud Lake, but had to return to Gimli to refuel. Kornelson operated out of the Steinbach airport.

Parking his plane at the Steinbach airport has given Kornelson the rare treat of meeting face-to-face a few of the people he helped this spring. Airplanes were included in the exhibits at the annual car show on the museum grounds in June and a couple came up to look at Kornelson’s plane. He said they shook his hand and thanked him for saving their home.

“That’s something we seldom get to see, for usually our fire fighting is on remote northern Crown lands.”