On Sunday, May 29, pilots and aviation enthusiasts from all over the region and beyond descended on the Barrhead Johnson Industrial Airport to take part in the airport’s biggest event of the year.
The Annual Fly-in/Drive-in Pancake Breakfast is hosted by the Barrhead Flying Club.
Flying Club president Wade Evans said they were pleased at this year’s turnout.
“This is our seventh year and we have always had wonderful support, not only from the general aviation community, but Barrhead residents,” he said. “But the number of planes is definitely down from previous years.”
Last year the event attracted more than 50 aircraft, but this year Evans estimated the number to be just short of 30.
“I think the weather played a big factor in it. We had some iffy weather on Saturday (May 28) and in the early afternoon there were thundershowers in the forecast,” Evans said, adding a number of pilots from places like Williams Lake and Peace River had said they would be attending. “But because of the time required to fly home, they decided to go somewhere closer by or stay home.”
However, hundreds did attend the breakfast and then tour the airport looking at the aircraft. In fact, when the Leader arrived about half an hour into the event the cooks had already run out of pancakes.
Shawn Stephani, flying club member and volunteer, said he was pleased by the turnout from the public and the general aviation community.
“The pilots are getting a lot of questions from people who are interested in their planes and in general aviation,” he said, adding despite having fewer aircraft than past years, there was a wide variety.
One pilot who was receiving a lot of questions was Michael Bellamy, a Spruce Grove pilot who flies his 1962 Shinn 2150 A plane out of the Villeneuve Airport, north of Edmonton.
“This is my retirement toy,” he said, adding for most of his working life he was a helicopter and fixed wing pilot who flew for the Alberta government and a number of private companies, a number of which flew in the Canadian Arctic.
Although Bellamy currently flies a fixed-wing aircraft, he first and foremost considers himself a helicopter pilot.
“A pilot may have an airplane, but deep down he really wants it to be a helicopter,” he joked to a group asking questions about his plane.
