Smith's Falls Montegue Airport is a popular airport in southeastern Ontario, situated about an hour drive from Canada's capital of Ottawa or about a 20 - 25 minute flight in a GA type aircraft. There are many similar sized or smaller airstrips and airports within a 15 - 30 minute flight, including Arnprior, Brockville, Carp, Rideau Lakes and others.

Every year, the folks at Smith's Falls Montegue Airport & COPA Flight 100 host a great spring fly-in breakfast that bring in 40 - 60 aircraft and many local visitors from the surrounding area arriving by personal motor vehicle or bicycle. They come for the breakfast but they also come to look at the many aircraft that visit the airport as well as browsing along the static parking area for local airport aircraft, chat with pilots and check out the open hangars. The pilots, many who have enjoyed heading out for that "$100 hamburger," love to hit fly-ins for a breakfast, lunch or other events.

The first aircraft to make the trip was the Canadian designed Christavia. This Christavia has its home at Rideau Lakes Airstrip in Westport, Ontario and arrived early, long before everything was set up but, maybe the pilot was hungry! Following the Christavia in about 5 minutes later was the big Stinson 108 Voyager. Beautifully restored, this Stinson is always a bit of a head-turner.

Flying in from the northeastern US was this very nice looking Van's RV-8, the owner/pilot making the trip with his wife for breakfast and to visit friends at Smith's Falls Airport who they vacation with in Florida. The RV-8 is a two seat, tandem aircraft designed by Van's. With a cruise of 210mph and a range in excess of 900 miles, the RV-8 is a go places aircraft for those who want to do some traveling with their aeroplane. The RV-8 is an ideal platform for traveling though you might find baggage space is somewhat limited.

One of the most often seen aircraft at airports and fly-ins are those made by Piper Aircraft. Usually, the venerable Piper Cub and her sister ships, such as the Super Cruiser, and Super Cub, are seen at fly-ins along with the low wing PA-28 series of aircraft. Slightly less common is the Piper PA-24 Comanche 250. This retractable Piper aircraft, either in 4 or 6 seat cabin configuration, were designed and built in the early 1950s with the first flight in 1958. Depending on engine type, cruise speed ranges from 116 - 139mph with a range of roughly 800miles. Production of the PA-28, and PA-39, ended in 1972 after severe flooding destroyed the production lines for both aircraft and Piper decided not to rebuild tooling, rather focusing on production of the PA-28 and PA-34 at a different plant.

The BD-4 was designed in the 1960s and was the first aeroplane designed as a homebuilt aircraft available in kit form. Builders could choose to build the aircraft as a 2 seat or 4 seat aircraft and could choose between tailwheel or tricycle gear configuration. The BD-4 has a cruise speed at almost 200mph and offers a range of 900 miles so, if you want to, you can certainly go places.

The Piper J3 Cub first flew in 1938 and quickly became an extremely popular light aircraft. It was produced from 1938 to 1947 with almost 20,000 aircraft built. It was designed as a training aircraft but was utilised by the US military as a liaison, ground control and reconnaissance aircraft as the L4 Grasshopper. The J3 was ideal as a trainer with a low stall speed, easy to handle and capable of landing and taking off in short distances. Today, the J3 is highly sought after with prices ranging from the low $20,000 to two, three or four times more than that depending on condition.

The Citabria was originally designed & built by Champion Aircraft Corporation and first flew in 1964. They were produced by Champion until acquired by Bellanca in 1970 who continued production of the Citabria, as well as the Decathlon and Scout types. Production at Bellanca ended in 1980 with the companies assets being liquidated 2 years later in 1982. Eventually, these aircraft designs ended up with another company known as American Champion Aircraft Corporation who started to produce these aircraft in 1989 for several years. More than 5200 of the type have been produced and they are still a highly sought after aircraft. The Citabria is aerobatic, has a cruise of about 125mph and a range of over 500 miles.

Diamond Aircraft Industries produce several aircraft including the DA20. The DA20 is a single engine, 2 place aircraft that offers reasonably good speed, 120 - 130 knots and a range of 525 nautical miles all with a fuel burn of roughly 5.3gal/hr (2.9gal/hr for Rotax). Depending on your preference, the DA20 Katana comes with a Rotax 912 and the DA20 C1 with a 120hp Continental, a Garmin glass cockpit and ergonomic seats with a 4 point harness. If you want to fly in complete comfort with an economic aircraft, a Diamond DA20 might be the way to go.

This week we visited the Smith's Falls Montegue Airport for the 2023 fly-in breakfast and had a look at some of the aircraft that visited. Next week we'll return to Smith's Falls to see more visiting aircraft as well as airport based aeroplanes, and what the breakfast held for the community.