It was a beautiful day for flying as many pilots set down to display their planes at Athabasca’s fifth annual fFly- Iin Bbarbeque at the Athabasca Regional Airport.
“People always ask us, ‘hHow many planes are you going to have?’ Wwell, we don't know,” said Karl Kopan, cCommunications co-ordinator with Athabasca County. “We always throw out an invitation all over the place and hope to have a good turnout.”
There were 600 people in attendance not just for the hamburgers and hot dogs, but too see over 20 different aircrafts from all over the province.
“We’ve never been hear here before so this will be our first year,” said Bob Bogovics, a resident and pilot from Beaumont. “Just thought we would come in and check it out.”
Dueo to the recent amount number of forest fires throughout Canada, the Athabasca Ccounty was unable to bring in an air tanker. Hhowever, they were able to bring in a different attraction to the show.
“One of our main attractions today is the RCMP air services helicopter,” said Kopan. “This is the helicopter that the RCMP use, in conjunction with the ground patrol cars, in our region to help control speeders.”
Planes weren’t the only attraction at the airport. Tthereir were displays with by the Athabsaca Fire Department, Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, and Stars STARS Air Ambulance.
County Reeve Doris Splane made an appearance at the barbeque and gave a brief speech before the raffle near the end of the event.
“If you look around this airport today, you would have seen many different types of aircrafts, many who are individually owned,” said Splane. “Today we were talking to those that either work in the aviation field or the hobbyist who does it for the love of flight. Each year this event brings in new people to this airport to show what we have to offer.”
During her speech, Splane mentioned the fuel that the airport provides, the new pad lighting system, and the new pilots lounge that has been added to the airport this year.
