Goodspeed 42B Young Pilots fly in

[Matthew Rogers]

Quoted from their website because I am lazy - August 20th-22nd
"This summer, Young Pilots USA will be hosting its first ever annual fly-in event! Located at Goodspeed Airport (42B) in East Haddam, CT, it'll be a weekend full of flying fun right on the Connecticut River. Pilots and the general public are equally welcome at this great weekend of aviation!"

https://www.youngpilots.org/42bflyin

I just went to the airport a few weeks ago. Beautiful location right on a river, cool approaches, walk to a restaurant and stores, fishing/kayaking right from the airport. Bald Eagle tour boats at a state park right across the river.

Young Pilots is an organization started by a teenager that just flew across the country in a Cub as a student pilot (dad is CFI and flew behind in a 182 and endorsed the X/C flights over and over along the way).

 

[Jeff Oslick]

42B is one of the most memorable airports I've flown to. I was a student on a dual XC in a C-150. That location is really beautiful, especially in autumn when the trees along the river are in full color with the white steel bridge to the north.

 

[Dana]

Goodspeed is a nice airport, I was based there for a couple of years. It was a ghost town and almost closed recently, but a couple of local pilots bought it with assistance from the RAF (Recreational Aviation Foundation) and it's very active again.

 

[Dana]

Five of us in four airplanes flew over to 42B for dinner this evening.

Here's my plane there this evening parked next to another old taildragger. I didn't see it land, but I'm told it uses nearly all of the 2100' runway, not the first time it's been there. I guess it's here for the weekend event.

 

[Matthew Rogers]

I am hoping to be at the fly-in weekend, but like everything it depends on a variety of life factors….

 

[Kent Wien]

Five of us in four airplanes flew over to 42B for dinner this evening.

Here's my plane there this evening parked next to another old taildragger. I didn't see it land, but I'm told it uses nearly all of the 2100' runway, not the first time it's been there. I guess it's here for the weekend event.

View attachment 99281

Oh I hope you will be there with your Hatz. I think I might be even more excited to see that than the C-47. I’ll be there with my dog of a tail dragger.

 

[Dana]

Oh I hope you will be there with your Hatz. I think I might be even more excited to see that than the C-47. I’ll be there with my dog of a tail dragger.

I'm going to try... I have to be in upstate NY later Saturday evening so it'll be tight.

 

[JonL62021]

Thanks for sharing this! I had not heard of this. I RSVP'd and will drive down Saturday with my son to check it out.

 

[Matthew Rogers]

There is a CAT-1 hurricane now forecast to be just off Long Island on Sunday, so looks like the forecast has to be watched closely. I was going to fly in Friday and out Sunday morning, but seems a little risky to try to fly out just before a hurricane hits.

 

[Dana]

It was a nice fly-in. Very hot. Obviously attendance was down due to today's (Sunday) hurricane forecast and low clouds to the north kept some people away, but there were a couple dozen planes there. I never did take any pictures, but going from memory there were a bunch of Cubs ranging from J-3s to a Carbon Cub on floats, two Huskies on amphib floats, a Champ, a C-170, two Navions, an RV-6, some sort of French military trainer (looked sort of like a Tucano but not quite?), the DC-3, my Hatz, a Thorp T-18 that's based there and is for sale, a Pawnee, a couple of Maules, and an assortment of ordinary Cessnas and Pipers. Lots of spectators, most sitting in the shade of the DC-3's wing. There was a food truck, and I saw a few tents and an RV down at the south end of the field, though I'm sure the campers pulled out Saturday afternoon, I'm told the DC-3 was going to leave around 4pm. I left around 2:30 because I needed to fix my generator before the storm hit, though it seems to be fizzling out after all the hype.

Good to see an almost dead airport come back to life.

 

[Kent Wien]

Thanks for the write up Dana. The wheeled Husky crowd (including me) didn’t come for various last minute reasons. One of our guys drove there and filmed the C-47 take off. Sure hope to make it next year if they hold it again.

 

[JonL62021]

I had some fun here yesterday with my son (almost 2). I know he must have enjoyed it because the first thing he said this morning was "airplanes sleep in hangars".

This was only the second fly in I have been too, if you count the food truck festival at Simsbury last year as the first. Hopefully someday I'll actually be able to fly to these things instead of driving. Still trying to figure out a long term aircraft plan. It was cool to see some of these planes up close. I've only flown Cessnas and 1 Piper. Always cool to see different aircraft I read about up close.

Hope they have this again next year seems like a really cool airport. Here are a few pictures I was able to take.