ATHABASCA- After two years on hiatus due to the COVID-19, the Athabasca Fly-In Barbecue returned Saturday with an event as large as there has ever been for the 10th annual run of the event.
Aviation enthusiasts and other hungry folks from across the Athabasca and gathered for the complementary lunch, car show, airplanes, and air show on July 9 at the Athabasca Airport.
Attendees were given the opportunity to see an array of aircraft, ranging from vintage planes to the RCMP helicopter, both up close on the ground and in action as they landed and took off from the airport.
Brent Handy brought with him the main attraction all the way from his home in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, putting on a magnificent air show for all attendees to enjoy during their lunch.
“I'm a military flight instructor and I'm based in Saskatchewan. I've been doing that since last fall. I did 20 years in the military and then I took a couple of years for a break,” Handy said when discussing his experience in the air.
While Handy has been flying for nearly 30 years, his experience with air shows started 10 years ago.
“Summer of 2014, I started flying this airplane in air shows in the two summers prior to that I was flying Snowbirds with the military,” Handy said.
With all his passion, skill and experience, it was no surprise that Handy’s show was a hit, giving onlookers a reason to cheer with a daring combinations of barrel rolls, dives, and flips of all sorts.
“I love to fly this airplane because it's actually capable of doing more radical maneuvers than the military jets, you can tumble it over and you can use the propeller as almost a flight control to generate some weirdly cool movements.”
