Sea Fair is not the only anniversary being celebrated this weekend. Westview Flying Club will bring back its traditional fly-in to celebrate its 60th anniversary from 11 am to 3 pm Saturday, July 27 at Powell River airport.
“It’s a good opportunity to see some unique aircraft,” said vice-president of the club Brent McKenzie. “We’re glad to be back and part of Sea Fair.”
The fly-in welcomes aircraft from all across BC, and will encompass a mix of antique aircraft and homebuilt airplanes.
Vintage Car Club members will take their cars up to the airport for a Show and Shine after Sea Fair parade.
A flight instructor will be on site between 11 am and 1 pm to answer any questions about learning to fly.
“One of our goals, definitely, is to get more people interested in aviation,” said McKenzie, adding that prerequisites aren’t as strict as they once were. Students just need be at least 16 years old.
The weekend will also play host to an air show early Sunday afternoon. The show will involve pilot John Mrazek in his Harvard Mark IV and his son Richard, flying a Russian YAK 18.
The club will also be using the fly-in to showcase its long legacy.
Flying was first brought to Powell River by enthusiast Roy Brett, who, together with his nine students, formed Powell River Flying Club. The club carved out a rough runway at Mahood Beach. Students were flown over to Comox for flying lessons in Brett’s Fleet 80 Canuck.
But the club needed a larger runway. In 1949, federal funding became available, adding to the funds the club had raised and the bonds they had sold.
An airport opened at the top of Duncan Street in 1952 with Brett landing his Canuck along the runway.
Wally Berge, who joined in 1959, described the club in its early days as “rough and ready.” The clubhouse was an old trailer and the runway was a gravel strip, he explained. “Club members went out on work parties to pick rocks off the runway,” he said, laughing.
Slowly, the club began to improve. A new clubhouse was built. Cable tie-downs for planes were added to the infield. The airstrip was paved once, and then again. “We wanted to make the facility attractive enough so that we could bring the wives and kids up,” said Berge.
The group also lobbied to have night lights put on the strip. “Before that, we used to use flare pots,” Berge said. Flare pots were large clay pots filled with oil and a wick which were placed along the runway. “You had to go and extinguish them afterwards, pick them up again,” he added. “It was time consuming.”
Two large hangars for airplanes were also built, mostly through volunteer labour. “Something like that kind of draws people to a common purpose,” Berge said. “You feel like you’re part of something that’s important.”
With their new and improved facilities, the idea came to host a fly-in, which Berge organized for its first four years. “I used to start at the beginning of the year,” he said, “and that took pretty much all my spare time through until summer.”
The fly-in was held in conjunction with Sea Fair and became a yearly highlight.
The event, which attracted performers from across BC, was also host to a famed salmon barbecue and a dance. Dances got so popular, said Berge, that plywood extensions had to be made for the air hangar because it wasn’t big enough.
One member of the club would draw cartoons on rolls of paper to plaster on the walls. “He would pick out people that were coming to the fly-ins and [draw a] cartoon about them,” Berge said. “People were coming up to us and asking if they could take theirs with them when it was over.”
Despite its fame, the fly-in has petered out over the years from lack of resources. This year however, it will be returning once more. The event will take place from 11 am to 3 pm Saturday, July 27, at the airport with the air performance due to take place early afternoon on Sunday, July 28.
