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Here is some notes on our recent outing to Indus, a privately owned airfield located South-East of Calgary, approximately 12 km from an intersection of Highway 22X (‘Marquis of Lorne Trail’) and Deerfoot. A few days ago when I met Butch in Springbank, among other things he was talking about a ‘new season of recreational flying at Indus’, that apparently began picking up, as the average temperature were on the rise, reflecting a full-blown advance of the spring.

Of course it was Butch, and his friend Ron (Butch’s partner in the Yak-1 homebuilt project) who ‘opened up’ Indus to me. It happened in 2004-05, shortly after our acquaintance with Butch began. Since then I’ve been to the place a number of times. Officially the aerodrome is called ‘Winters Aire Park’ , it is assigned a four-letter ICAO designator CFY4, which you could find in respective Canadian aviation publications.

Perhaps, it was a spirit of genuine and friendly aviation community that immediately appealed to me, and from the beginning I liked those occasions of being there, and always looked forward to visiting Indus again.

You can easily understand what I’m talking about once you grasp the meaning of what’s going on this picture, for example. It is just one snapshot, which, I hope, conveys that air, that wonderful, family-style atmosphere of socializing between the dedicated aviation enthusiasts at Indus.

I like it very much. Friendly and relaxed, the local people are truly nice, always ready to help each other, if the need be.

Essentially, we had a chance to see it right on the day of our visit. Shortly after we arrived on the field, Butch came, and as it turned, it was not only us who waited for him. He promptly opened a hangar, and at once an ‘exacting and laborious operation of aircraft repositioning’ began. As we learned, this Mooney, temporarily stored in the Ron’s hangar, was supposed to be pulled out, and moved over to its new domicile. A task before ‘community’s collective force’ was first to clear off the way for it, and then shove the Mooney to its newly built hangar, just finished by its owner, and who no doubt was eager to park the bird at the place ‘where it belongs’.

There was no rush, nobody was under the ‘pressure of schedule’, and, as far as I can judge from my own perception, it took maybe 40 minutes to accomplish the whole operation.

In order to clear way for the Mooney, all Butch’s and Ron’s ‘toys’ were pulled out of the hangar first. By the ‘toys’ I mean replicas of warbirds, SE-5E and P-40, that Butch and Ron built, and since enjoyed flying for fun out of Indus.

Out was also a ‘Cavalier’, an only ‘civilian dude’ in this respected company of WW-I and WW-II combat ‘veterans’.

By the way, Butch said he wants to sell it, ‘to good people’, of course, and ‘at a reasonable price’

So, for a while an alley between hangars got packed with the planes.

However, it didn’t seem to hinder the otherwise weak pace of operation at the field any further. As I mentioned, nobody was concerned with achieving an objective of strict ‘ON TIME’ performance

If you are a curious type, a ‘buff’, interested in any kind of ’stuff’ related to the ‘experimental aviation’, Indus could probably be a right place to satisfy to your ‘exploration instinct’ to some degree.

(To be continued..)