A recent visit to Brookhaven Calabro Airport, hidden behind a forest of trees and private homes and accessed by the local Dawn Drive, on a bleak late March day whose steel wool sky was so low it almost scratched you , revealed what it was, but not necessarily what it might be.
The ramp near Mid-Island Air Service was read mostly with single-engine aircraft types, punctuated by an occasional twin, and the almost unexpected sputter of an isolated propeller from a Cirrus SR-20 in this day of marginally flying rules. (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 Aviation Education Center, stood still in time, a promise of the past that failed to deliver the airport’s future.
The solitary, low-level, cinder-block terminal, staffed by a single monitor of the facility’s common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF), housed the equally enclosed dining hall, the core, to some degree, 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 on sectional paper maps of New York that doubled as tablecloths.
A glance at the rectangular room, which featured a “Maintenance Shop” sign, revealed its former raison d’être, sporting circular stools, a lunch counter, slicer, and rusty coffeepot. Recent research indicated interest and its resurrection as a restaurant. Perhaps it also indicated its repurposed future.
The 795-acre, two-runway, towerless, 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 after Dr. Frank Calabro, who was instrumental in its development, but who, along with his wife Ruth, perished 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 grants from the Department of Transportation (DOT), most of which went to nearby Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, facilitated recent beacon and taxiway lighting system replacements.
“We need to maintain the runways, the lights, the structures and the navigation aids,” according to Marten W. Haley, General Services Commissioner 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.
Dowling College Aviation School, once the cornerstone of the airport but closed when the Oakdale-based college itself declared 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 Fiasca private pilot aircraft and 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 trips to Bader Field in Atlantic City.
The Grand Old Airshow, held in 2006 and 2007, was created to transport viewers back in time, biplanes and World War II, and showcase Long Island aviation.
Enticing visitors through flyers and its website, it urged them to “join us this year as we go back in time to celebrate Long Island’s Golden Age of Aviation,” a time when “biplanes soared through the skies decades ago. It went on to offer the experience of “gone days of aviation, such as World War I dogfights, open cockpit biplanes, World War II fighter planes, 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-1s, Nieuports and Messerschmitt Me-109s, while the aerobatics had included comedic stunts performed on Piper J-3 Cubs by “randomly chosen”. audience member Carl Spackle; Delsey Dives provided by Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and balloon bursts run 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.
Vintage vehicle and airplane rides were available. Spectators brought their own lawn chairs and lined them up next to the active track amid period costume and speeches by the Tuskegee Airmen. Concession trucks sold everything from hot dogs to ice cream to souvenirs, and numerous schools and aviation-related associations set up booths.
Held for two consecutive autumns, the Grand Old Airshow was a single-day, single-visit glimpse into the sky where Long Island’s multi-faceted aviation history was written and recreated.
A 2008 flightless tribute was also offered to Vinny Nasta. A Riverhead High School art teacher from Wading River lost his life at age 47 when the Nieuport 24 replica flying at Old Rhinebeck Airfield plunged into the woods after his mock dogfight with another replica, a Fokker. Dr.1 Triplane, on August 17 of that year.
Dr. Tom Daley, former dean of aviation at Dowling College, director of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome airshow 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 their activity. During the 12-month period ending March 25, 2005, there were 135,100 annual aircraft movements, or an average of 370 per day, and 99 percent of them were in the general aviation category, allowing pilot students obtain licenses and practice during the week. touch-and-go’s on a towerless airfield.
Its future depends on this segment of aviation.