A recent visit to the Brookhaven Calabro Airport, tucked behind a forest of trees and private homes and accessed via the local Dawn Drive, on a harsh late March day whose steel wool sky was so low it almost scratched you. , revealed what it was, but not necessarily what it could be.
The ramp near Mid-Island Air Service read mostly single-engine aircraft types, punctuated by the occasional twin, and the almost unexpected sizzle of an isolated propeller from a Cirrus SR-20 on this day of marginally flying rules. Visuals (VFR) cracked the silence like a hammer hitting a sheet of glass.
The blond brick structure at the north end of the field, the once-proud classroom and training monolith of Dowling College’s Center for Aeronautical Education, stood still in time, a promise from the past that failed to deliver the airport’s future.
The lone, low-level, cinder-block terminal, manned by a single monitor of the facility’s Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF), housed the equally enclosed dining hall, the hub, to some extent, of any general aviation airport. , since it provided local and commercial information. cross-country pilots a destiny and a purpose, and witnessed numerous student pilot-instructor duos discussing aircraft handling techniques over the years over paper sectional maps of New York that doubled as tablecloths.
A glance into the rectangular room, which bore a “Handy Shop” sign, revealed its former raison d’être, sporting circular stools, a lunch counter, slicer, and rusty coffee pot. Recent research indicated interest and its resurrection as a restaurant. Perhaps it also indicated its future reuse.
The 795-acre, two-runway, no-tower, public-use General Aviation Airport one mile north of the Shirley business district in eastern Long Island, Suffolk County, was owned by the City of Brookhaven.
Originally designated the Mastic Flight Strip, it was built at the end of World War II in 1944 on 325 acres to provide logistical support to the US Army Air Corps, after which its title was transferred to the state of New York and ultimately to the General Aviation Division in 1961, current owner. Given its current nickname of “Calabro”, it was named for Dr. Frank Calabro, who was instrumental in its development, but who, along with his wife, Ruth, died prematurely in a plane crash three decades later.
Construction and expansion produced a growing crop of hangars, shops, fixed base operators (FBOs), the current terminal, and a second concrete runway to complement the first in 1963.
Those, including the 4,200-foot Runway 6-24 and 4,255-foot Runway 15-33, are paved and lighted, but the latter features an instrument landing system (ILS), equipped and maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration. (FAA).
$1.5 million of the collective $5 million in federal Department of Transportation (DOT) grants, the majority of which went to nearby Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, facilitated recent taxiway and beacon lighting system replacements.
“We need to maintain runways, lights, structures and navigational aids,” according to Marten W. Haley, Commissioner of General Services for Brookhaven Town, which includes the airport itself. “Everything has a finite life.”
The airport’s various fixed-base operators and other tenants include Brookfield Aviation, Mid-Island Air Service, Northeast Air Park, Ed’s Aircraft Refinishing, Long Island Soaring Association, Island Aerial Air (for banner towing), NAASCO Northeast Corporation (which performs airplane services and helicopter repair and overhaul) and Sky Dive South Shore.
The Dowling College School of Aviation, once the cornerstone of the airport but closed when the Oakdale-based college itself filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in 2016, had offered bachelor’s degrees in Aerospace Systems Technology and Aviation Management, and had participated in the FAA Air Traffic Control College. Training initiative. A fleet of private pilot aircraft and Fiasca flight simulators had enabled its students to earn private, instrument, multi-engine, instructor (CFI) and commercial qualifications.
Although the field has primarily involved general aviation flight activity, there have been a handful of other events throughout its history.
As the new base for the former 44-passenger Swissair Convair CV-440 Metropolitans operated by Cosmopolitan Airlines from Farmingdale Republic Airport and its self-styled Cosmopolitan Sky Center after being transferred here, for example, they, along with a handful of other kinds, they offered rides at Atlantic City’s Bader Field.
The Grand Old Airshow, held in 2006 and 2007, was created to transport viewers back in time to World War II and biplanes, and showcase Long Island aviation.
Having enticed visitors through flyers and his website, he urged them to “join us this year as we step back in time to celebrate Long Island’s Golden Age of Aviation,” a time when “biplanes soared the skies decades ago.” It went on to offer the experience of “bygone days of aviation, like WWI dogfights, open-cockpit biplanes, WWII fighter jets, and of course, the famous Geico Skytypers, taking to the skies.” Long Island Blues”.
The shows themselves had featured vintage vehicles and static aircraft displays, the latter encompassing TBM Avengers, Fokker Dr-1, Nieuports and Messerschmitt Me-109s, while the aerobatics had included comedic stunts performed on Piper J-3 Cubs by “chosen at random”. audience member Carl Spackle; Delsey Dives provided by Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and balloon bursts led by Great Lakes Speedsters, Fleet 16Bs and PT-17 Stearmans; sprints between track-bound motorcycles and low-flying airborne PT-17s; aerobatics by SF-260; and skywriting by Sukhoi 29s.
A Sikorsky UH-34D Sea Horse Marine helicopter, used for combat rescue in Vietnam, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and by NASA during the Project Mercury astronaut recovery program, had demonstrated search and rescue procedures.
Both Long Island Aviation and formation flying were also well represented. The shows had featured Byrd, N3N, Fleet Model 16B and N2S Stearman aircraft from the Bayport Aerodrome Society; P-40 Warhawks and P-51 Mustangs from Warbirds over Long Island; F4U Corsairs from the American Airpower Museum; and North American SNJ-2s from Geico Skytypers based at Republic Airport.
Rides in vintage vehicles and airplanes were available. Spectators brought their own lawn chairs and lined them up next to the active track amid period costumes and speeches made by the Tuskegee Airmen. Concession trucks sold everything from hot dogs to ice cream to souvenirs, and numerous aviation-related schools and associations set up booths.
Running for two consecutive autumns, the Grand Old Airshow was a one-day outdoor glimpse and one skyward visit where Long Island’s multifaceted aviation history was written and re-created.
A 2008 flightless tribute to Vinny Nasta was also featured. A Riverhead High School art teacher who hailed from Wading River, was killed at the age of 47 when the replica Nieuport 24 flying at Old Rhinebeck Airfield plunged into the woods after its mock dogfight with another replica, of a Fokker. Dr.1 Triplane, on August 17 of that year.
Dr. Tom Daley, former Dowling College Dean of Aviation, director of the Old Rhinebeck Airfield Air Show, and creator of the Brookhaven Grand Old Airshow, was forced to call off what had become an increasingly popular fall event.
“There was some local opposition to the program,” he said, “and everyone had their hand out. I was asked to give x amount of dollars for security, x amount for emergency medical presence. I couldn’t do it anymore. There was no way to who could put on an air show and break even with expectations like that.”
Currently, the 217 aircraft based at Brookhaven Calabro Airport, 92 percent of which are single-engine, five percent of which are multi-engine and three percent of which are gliders, provide most of its activity. During the 12-month period ending March 25, 2005, there were 135,100 aircraft movements per year, or an average of 370 per day, 99 percent of which were in the general aviation category, allowing student pilots get licenses and practice on weekdays. touch-and-go’s on an airfield without a tower.
Its future depends on this segment of aviation.