2005 Events:

Nov 26, 2005 - 9th Annual Aviation Christmas Dinner

The 9th Annual Aviation Christmas Dinner in Kingston was held this past Saturday, Nov 26th. This annual event has grown from a small, very local aviation get-together in its early years into what’s now generally considered one of Ontario’s premier Aviation events. Anyone who’s interested in aviation comes. That’s the only criteria needed to show up. This year, that translated into an attendance of 132 people.

Sept 11, 2005 - Hawke field Fly-Out

The Recreational Aircraft Association (RAA) had their Fly-in and lunch at Hawke field, just east of Oshawa today. It was indeed a friendly gathering of pilots and enthusiasts, their families, and their ultra-lights, amateur-builts, war-birds and certified aircraft from all parts of southern Ontario. The weather was perfect and their grass strip was almost as good as someone's front-lawn.

See pictures of the event with the button link to the above-right.

Aug 19, 2005 - TGIF Bar-b-que

A good time was had by all at our Aug 19th TGIF bar-b-que. We raised over $70.00with half of that going to the Club's general fund.

Aug 13, 2005 - Community Fun Fly

After 102 people got their airplane rides and after interviews with both TV crews and newspaper reporters, the Kingston Flying Club's Fun Fly day was a smashing success this year.  We'll get some pictures up when our star photographer brings them around.

The Social Committee raised $196.97 after expenses with a lot of food still left over for a TGIF this coming Friday (Aug 19, 2005).

Kudos go the folks who let the media know all this stuff was going on.

July 15 - 18, 2005 - Fly-out Down East

While we planned to fly down East in mid-July (to PEI), the weather man said we couldn't - so we played it safe and stayed home. We'll try again next year..

June 25th, 2005 - The Balme Strawberry Social

The Strawberry Social started with a Poker Run with pilots flying to Westport, to Smith Falls, then on to Brockville and back home. Gord Brown gave the flight briefing in the morning - we were off. We had a ball!  At the end of the Poker Run we brought our poker cards back to the Club where we snorted strawberries and whipped cream + ice-cream and cake.

Clyde won the poker hand. Winning himself - a pot, literally. It appears to be about 9" cream coloured table pot. We're sure the Antique Roadshow people would estimate its worth to be in the thousands. Kudos go to Charles and Eithne who put on a wicked Strawberry Social. While Charles and group set up the white open-air tent outside Eithne worked in the background arranging the food and drinks inside. 

June 5, 2005: - Fun' Raising dinner

About 48 people attended Sunday's Fun' Raising dinner event. Two free hours of flying were drawn. Our past President Dave Minaker drew the first ticket as a door prize and it was won by Dave Spooner. Donald Delahaye (a life member whom hasn't been at the club in ages), drew the other lucky name from a pool of people that had flown a club aircraft this week. The lucky person to win was Arthur Toew.

Dave & Lois brought their famous smoked turkey, Charles and Eithne baked a ham and Brian Quinn brought the great roast beef and Ian brought the wine

Garth Wallace entertained us with his tales of his experience as a flight instructor teaching Lynn who had 2 big...blue eyes, some aerobatic moves in a Citabria.

Lots of delicious food and chatter. A good time was had by all.

..and From Charles: Just a note of thanks to all who came to the fun'raiser potluck and for the very generous contributions made by so many in the form of great food and, from the book-keeper's point of view, in the form of great cash. Between the donation jar and the silent auction we collected about $1900, which will be essential to help us through the next few weeks - thanks so much.

May 29th, 2005 - KFC Fly-in Breakfast

This annual event was well attended today with 12 aircraft coming in from a number of locations around eastern Ontario. Our full breakfast included pancakes, with ham and home fries along with orange juice and coffee, served from from 8:30 am to 11:30 am at a cost of $5.00. The food was great with many thanks going out to our cooks and servers and everyone else who helped out. Again, to see a few pictures of the event click on the link button to the above right.

May 21 2005 - Young Eagles Rally

Kingston played host to a number of distinguished events today, not the least of which was the Young Eagles rally where a number of young Air Cadets were given the opportunity to fly. In addition, the CASARA team from Ottawa were down with a demonstration group. And then to top it all off, four Harvards and a P51D Mustang showed up as part of the RMC graduation celebration.

The Young Eagles program takes young people who're interested in aviation and teams them up with licensed pilots such that kids get a chance to fly - just so they can see what it's all about.  The enthusiasm levels are generally pretty high. The arrival of the Harvards as well as a WWII Mustang P51D made the whole event extra special. See a few pictures using the link button to the above right.

May 6, 2005 - TGIF Bar-b-que

The first of our Friday afternoon bar-b-que went over really well with about 30 people in attendance and selling enough food to provide us a profit of $185. These Friday afternoon bar-b-ques in the KFC Hangar have people chowing down with hamburgers, sausages and hotdogs talking about flying. It's actually a really good time and they were really popular last year too. The Social Committee met following the food planning more activities for the future. See a few pictures using the link button to the above-right.

Apr 24th, 2005 - KFC Annual General Meeting

This annual get together had our business meeting at 5:00 pm with dinner staring at 6:00 pm. The pot luck dinner was an incentive to get he business side over with quickly. Which we did! 

Apr 23rd, 2005 - CASARA Aircraft Search Simulation at the KFC

On the evening of 23 April, members of the Ottawa Civil Air Search and Rescue (CASARA) arrived at the KFC to prepare a search headquarters for an exercise that was to be run the following day. The unit was tasked to search for a simulated overdue Challenger ultra-lite on floats that had departed the seaplane base at Black Donald Lake, returning to his home on Loughborough Lake. Ottawa has three search aircraft in the unit, but due to the weather that night, and the forecast for Saturday, Ottawa did not fly the aircraft down to Kingston. They did however bring a ground search team that was tasked to locate the source of an ELT signal on Wolfe Island. The crew headed over on the ferry and soon homed in on KFC's Dennis Doyle's grass strip and his Tri-Pacer. The exercise staff had placed the training ELT (transmitting on 123.1) close to Dennis's plane in a crack between some rocks. The team also had to administer first aid to a simulated casualty and have him evacuated.

It was unfortunate that the weather did not co-operate as there would have been a bee-hive of activity at the club. There were multiple targets for the aircrew to locate, as well as other ELT's (on both 123.1 and 121.6) for them to home in on. The unit had a portable comms package that they set up which enabled them to stay in contact with their teams/aircrew while out searching. Although most CASARA units only fly out of their permanent headquarters at the local airport, Ottawa has the capability to deploy to any airport, within reason, and set up a make-shift headquarters in the field. It was only too sad that they were not able to demonstrate their full capabilities. I believe everyone would have found it very interesting.

Feb 27, 2005 - Lasagna Night

Twenty-two of us sat around a nicely decorated Clubhouse eating lasagna, rolls, and salad and had a rather enjoyable evening. Gord, Dave and Tom then continued their evening with their significant others - with a night flight. A few pictures should be available from the Lasagna button above.

Feb  17, 2005: Our Booth at the Home Show

The Kingston Flying Club hosted a rather professional looking booth for this year's Kingston Home Show at the Cataraqui Town Center. The Home Show button to the right provides a picture of our effort being hosted by our own Al Baldry.

Jan 1, 2005: City Overflight

Come out and join us on Sat Jan 01, 2005 for the first flight of the year. We are trying to arrange for as many aircraft to overfly the city.

This has become a tradition for a few of us. Let's try to make it bigger and better. After a short flight over the city, come back to the Kingston Flying Club for a chat and some hot chocolate or coffee. Meeting at 10am with departure time of approximately 11am.