Brampton Airport Day

^{Written by: Phil Lightstone
Photos courtesy of Phil Lightstone}

Sunday September 8, 2024 saw scattered clouds with temperatures on the ground at 16C in brisk winds at the Brampton-Caledon Airport (CNC3) in Brampton, Ont.  By noon, the clouds changed to an overcast layer with brief rain showers. The Brampton Flight Centre, owners of the airport, opened up their doors to the community and public every year. 

With sight seeing flights ($50 CAD for a 20 minute flight), vintage cars and motorcycles, aircraft displays, the Great War Flying Museum, BBQ lunch, restaurant, flightline tours, Radio Control model aircraft displays, Brampton Fire Department, the OPP and a variety of vendors, the community had a lot of things to look at. Families and children were entertained with face painters, bouncy castles, live music and visits in the OPP cruisers and fire engines.

The Great War Flying Museum (GWFM) opened their doors, including at least ten WWI re-enactors in full uniform. The museum was flying their Fokker DRIII triplane, Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter and other WWI vintage aircraft. Seeing the Fokker and Sopwith strafe runway 06-28 (executing overshooting and flybys) was amazing, transporting attendees back to France during the 1918 war. The weather at the Toronto Pearson International Airport (CYYZ) was: CYYZ 081900Z 28020G29KT 15SM BKN044 BKN200 17/08 A2996 RMK CU6CI1 SLP150 DENSITY ALT 900FT=.  The higher winds did not detract the museum’s pilots from flying these vintage aircraft.  Historically, the British, French and German airfields were large rectangular grass fields, allowing aircraft to take off directly into the wind.  The design of modern airports, with paved or grass strips, require pilots and aircraft to have the expertise to deal with crosswinds. The WWI aircraft are not exceptionally cross wind friendly. 

The GWFM’s mission is to provide the finest presentation of World War I aviation history and has been buying, building, maintaining and flying vintage aircraft as well displaying period artifacts.  They focus on education, entertainment and other benefits for their members and visitors. The GWFM was founded in 1970 by a group of Brampton Flying Club members. All of the founders were pilots, mostly private but several were airline pilots . Besides being pilots all loved WWI aircraft. The first aircraft was purchased from a well-known amateur aircraft builder, Mr. Gogi Goguillot who lived in Langley, BC. This was a 0.85 scale British SE 5A. The GWFM still fly this aircraft on a regular basis. It is very popular and is the first challenge for each new pilot as they come on to the team. This is the only aircraft which is not full scale. All subsequent replicas are full scale and based upon original drawings. The GWFM summer hours (Victoria Day to Labour Day Weekend) are Tuesday and Thursday 11 am to 3 pm, Saturday, Sunday and Holidays 11 am to 4 pm.  During the winter, the museum is closed to tours, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays, members are on-site performing maintenance and repairs.  Visitors are welcome in the hangar between 2:00 and 4:00 pm.

The Halton Hills Model Flying Club (www.hhmfc.ca) had a large number of both electric and nitro methane radio controlled model aircraft on display.  Peter Scott, a member of HHMFC and the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada (MAAC) has been building and flying RC model aircraft for 20 plus years and has over 30 models.  He displayed his P38 Lightning twin electric engine model alongside at least 20 other models.

An army of volunteers, including a battalion of Air Cadets, ensured that the day went smooth.  With copious amounts of empty fields on the airport property, ample parking was available.  With a single roadway into the temporary parking lot, the backup of cars into and out of the parking area was quite long.  However, with the help of the volunteers, the challenge was quickly overcome, and exiting the airport was not an issue.  Key to these logistics are the volunteers. Volunteer Robert Mackintosh has been volunteering at the airport for 10 years. While a non pilot, Robert likes being around aircraft, hangout at Brampton Flying Club barbecues, seminars, meetings and the car show held in July.

Nanci Soldo, Airport Administrator has been with the Brampton Flight Centre for the past 15 years and is a licensed pilot.  Her favourite aircraft is a Cessna C152.  Nanci reports that historically the event attracts 3,000 to 5,000 visitors and is focused on the local Caledon community.  Clearly keeping the local community happy is just common sense, as other airports are battling noise complaints from local residents. Fortunately, CNC3 is surrounded by farmers fields, with just a few homes on McLaughlin Rd (Cheltenham ON). As such, the event is not marketed as a General Aviation fly in event. With a focus on safety, solo student pilots were precluded from flying during the event. With an abundance of licensed pilots working on other ratings (commercial, IFR, twin, etc.), there was a lot of flight operations for the attendees to watch.

The Brampton Flight Centre’s community day was a huge success, introducing countless young people to aviation, perhaps your future Air Canada Captain was amongst them. For General Aviation pilots in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the Brampton Flight Centre’s Airport Day is an excellent way to spend a few hours on a Sunday. You can check out future events at www.bramptonflightcentre.com.