Brampton Flying Club

For recreational flying to training pilots for careers in aviation, for more than seventy-five years the Brampton Flying Club has fostered the growth of aviation in Canada, earning if the Belt of Orion Award for Excellence from Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame bestowed at ceremonies held in 2022. 

Founded in 1946, the roots of the Brampton Flying Club date to 1944, when pilots in Peel region – mainly air cadet and British Commonwealth Air Training Plan instructors – began to chat about flying recreationally. Over the course of discussions held in the old Registry Building in downtown Brampton (now part of Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives), they soon realized there was sufficient interest to consider a flying club. When the group, which included Elmore Archdekin, Tom Brydon, Art Death, Bill Farr, Mac McLeave, Jason Shaw, and Bud Young, learned that a de Havilland Tiger Moth was available from the Oshawa Flying Club, the matter was soon settled. A Brampton Flying Club there would be.

Memberships, both social and flying, helped raise money for the Tiger Moth. Elgin Armstrong, of Armstrong Construction, whose experience paving airfields for the BCATP would soon come in handy, was also keen to join. Before the future members of the BFC knew it, they had themselves an airplane. Now, they needed a field.

The group, flying from local farms, went in search of a more permanent home. Several sites were considered, including lands owned at one time by the Canadian Kodak Company, before members settled on a field owned by the provincial government that lay beside the Ontario Reformatory on the west side of Brampton. With the first instructor, Bud Young, on staff, a charter applied for and granted, a rough hangar and club house constructed, and a runway graded (thanks to Armstrong), the new club began drumming up wider interest.

Early members recall flying along Highways 7 and 10 to draw attention, often landing nearby to take paying passengers for joyrides. Bull’s dairy farm, now part of Peel Village subdivision, was a favourite spot to touch down, with the cattle playing host to takeoffs and landings. The tactics worked. A year after the club first opened, newspapers reported that the BFC had nearly a hundred members. By 1964, that number had risen to over 300.

Despite such growth, during its first decade the BFC remained a largely part-time affair. According to early member George Welsh, the Department of Transportation took a “rather dim view” of such outfits and the Club faced one of its first real challenges: “go full time or close up!” Closing up was not acceptable. Full time, on the other hand ....

Within a few years, there were six aircraft operating out of the Club, including a Piper Cub, an Aeronca Chief, and a 90HP Champ, the first airplane the Club purchased new. The fleet would keep expanding and modernizing, and would come to include, at different times, the first Cessna 152 operated in Canada, Cessna 172s, Piper Warriors, Citabrias, a Cardinal RG, a twin-engine Seneca, and many more.

The Club faced two serious challenges in 1968. First came a fire that engulfed a sorely needed hangar. Even more pressing was news that the Club’s airport license would not be renewed the following year. The BFC Board, recognizing how precarious was their position, immediately negotiated an extension, securing much needed time to find a new home. Then President Donald Fisher suggested they move and establish an airport. There was some debate about whether the plan could be pulled off, but at least a nest-egg of some $27,000, combined with the insurance payment for the lost hangar, provided sufficient funds. After much searching, two 100-acre parcels near Hwy 10, known as the Lowe/Sloane package, were purchased. The BFC had itself the makings of an airport and, on 18 October 1970, future Ontario Premier William ‘Bill’ Da­vis, then Minister of Education and MPP for Brampton, cut the red ribbon stretching across the newly cleared runway.

The official opening of the BFC’s airfield was paired with the Club’s first air show. Performances included an early Oscar Boesch glider display, a fly-by of an Air Canada DC-9, a DC-3, and some of the first displays by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. More than 5,000 people attended. The event proved so successful that it continued until 1976 – marking the Club’s thirtieth anniversary. Nearly thirty years later, after organizing singular airshows, including a fiftieth anniversary celebration display in 1996, the Club resumed hosting an annual event in the form of the BFC Open House. Its Airport Day has since welcomed thousands each Fall.

With the move to Caledon, the BFC really began to grow. Although still indebted from its move north of Brampton, its Board leveraged the rising property values around the airport to finance the paving of its first runway. Another was soon cleared and paved as well. Fuel pumps were installed, and new club house and hangars were built. As its facilities expanded, so too did its services, notably for instruction. By 1974, ground school, which had previously been held offsite, including in portables at nearby Sheridan College (and before that even in the boiler room at the old Brampton High School), was moved onsite.

Increasingly, the Club was becoming a destination for aviation in Ontario. Draws included the Ontario Aviation Historical Society, better known as the Great War Flying Museum, the 892 Snowy Owl Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron, and a local chapter of the Recreational Aircraft Association. The latter reflects the Club’s welcoming environment for homebuilt aircraft. Certainly members Don Wooley, who kept his basement built “Nipper” at the field, and Reid Hutchinson loved the BFC for this very reason. Indeed, over the years, many notable pilots and aircraft have called the Club home – George Neal (CAHF, 1995) and his de Havilland Chipmunk and Sopwith Pup among them.

While the Club has had its ups and downs, including a second fire in 2019, today it is one of Canada’s busiest general aviation hubs. As a not-for-profit corporation, the BFC continues to own and operate its certified airport, now the Brampton-Caledon Airport – the largest privately-owned airport in the country, a pilot shop (Humphrey’s, named after the local groundhog), and restaurant. The field is also home to maintenance and refuelling services and many privately owned aircraft and hangars. In Caledon, the Club remains an active citizen through numerous initiatives, such as “Light Up the Runway” in support of the Bethell Hospice in Inglewood, Ontario.

The Club’s teaching facility, re-conceived as the Brampton Flight Centre, is now a world-renowned flight school that currently boasts a modern fleet of 23 aircraft, plus the original Tiger Moth (repurchased after an earlier sale and now fully restored), and two flight training devices operated as part of a comprehensive instruction program. Thousands of pilots have earned their wings at the Club, from recreational pilot permits to private and commercial licences with multi IFR ratings. Hundreds of students have also graduated from its Transport Canada approved Integrated Airline Transport Pilot Licence and Flight College programs and have landed successful careers with domestic and international airlines.

Such success over more than seventy-five years is thanks largely to the Club’s members, whose commitment to aviation and to their flying club has been driven by a remarkable sense of spirit. For the families of many, membership at the BFC remains a generational affair. Through their dedication to both the Club and to aviation generally, they have embodied their organization’s motto Volo Nunc et Semper / To fly now and always, and in turn have helped to foster the growth of Canada’s aviation industry, making the Brampton Flying Club a welcome and integral part of the local and broader community. No wonder so many have heeded the BFC’s call to choose to ‘come fly with us’.