Father’s Day food, fun and flying at Cornwall Regional Airport

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SUMMERSTOWN — William Ferguson Legge estimated more than 500 meals were served Sunday at the annual Father’s Day Breakfast held at the Cornwall Regional Airport.

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For 47 years, Legge and his colleagues, COPA Flight 59, have celebrated Father’s Day with this annual breakfast, the key attraction of which was not only the fantastic food, but also the opportunity for a free flight. on one of the planes at the airport.

“Part of this exercise is to bring the whole community and maybe some of these young kids here will say ‘hey, I’d like to try aviation as a career,’ whether it’s a pilot or a mechanic or an air traffic controller, or something like that. We hope to instill some interest in the kids here today,” said Legge.

By mid-morning there was a long line of children and their fathers who, after feasting on bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, pancakes and toast, were ready to go to heaven.

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The pilots themselves were COPA members as well as instructors from the Cornwall Aviation flying school, which is based at the airport.

“Normally during the year Cornwall Aviation is busy with things like training so it can be difficult for them to schedule flights like this. On a day like today, it’s good for them too to give interested participants a flight,” said Legge.

Apart from the Father’s Day plane ride, COPA 59 organizes discovery days twice a year where, again, children have the chance to experience flying.

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Cornwall Aviation’s Dave Small said events like these really show the value the airport brings to the region.

“We could have an aspiring pilot here in the crowd,” he said.

“For the airport it’s great because it helps the local community know what’s going on here,” Small added. “I tend to run into a lot of people who don’t know much about the airport and what’s going on here and all the services available.”

Cornwall Regional Airport is jointly funded by the City of Cornwall and the Township of South Glengarry, although the future of the airport has become uncertain as Cornwall City Council has repeatedly stated its intention to exit the airport business.

“New people come on board and they don’t necessarily know exactly the value of the infrastructure that’s here,” Small said.

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At a meeting in February this year, the former councillor. Elaine MacDonald said “the airport represents (decades) bad business (city) to me.

cone Fred Ngoundjo said it was like throwing taxpayer dollars down the drain, and Coun. Sarah Good said the airport was “very limited in what it can offer in terms of benefits”.

“I try to encourage current board members to come and see what the value is,” Small said.

Small explained that the airport was used for emergency medical purposes, including collecting donated organs for use in life-saving transplants. It has also been used to support the operations of local police forces, including the OPP and RCMP.

Small said Cornwall Aviation conducted about 530 flight tests last year for aspiring pilots, and those pilots who come to train at the airport typically stay in the area while they study and spend money that supports the local economy.

“They need a place to stay, they buy food in Cornwall, they buy gas, they buy coffee, they go to the movies, they stay in Cornwall,” he said. “There’s a lot of revenue generated for the city by the students being here.”

The flight school celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

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