Planes are parked Sept. 11 at the Bethel Regional Airport on North Road in Bethel. The airport is hosting a Fall Fly-in on Saturday with music, games and refreshments. Rose Lincoln/The Bethel Citizen
BETHEL — The Bethel Region Airport will hold a Fall Fly-in on Saturday with live music, games, refreshments and possibly balsa gliders for children. The public is invited to the event at 113 North Road.
The rain date is Sunday.
New Deputy Airport Manager Randy Autrey said people fly in from all over. Some may land, stay for a while and leave, while others may land and take one of three vans transporting people to Sunday River ski area in nearby Newry for its Fall Festival weekend.
Maine Aeronautical handed out flyers at other airports and will provide coffee and donuts in the morning, Autrey said. Lunch will also be offered.
He said that in the past people have donated money for Fall Fly-ins and Foliage Fly-ins that was used to buy couches and a TV in the airport lobby. This year they hope to buy an automated external defibrillator and a first aid kit.
Autrey has been working with a new airport board that includes Dr. John Mason, Bill Allen, Norm Clanton and Ed Lovejoy.
“In January, we thought, ‘what are we going to be to the community?’” They decided to “do more community events, more community-sponsored things, more fly-ins, more excitement,” Autrey said.
Although there are a number of uses for the airport, first and foremost it is life-saving hub, he said.
“We are in such a remote area,” Autrey said. “LifeFlight comes in here and takes people to where they need to be.” Angel MedFlight “takes people into the Boston centers for burns and cancer. People come here and pick up patients from all over, from Rumford, Mexico, Dixfield and all the way into New Hampshire.”
Autrey remembers the airport’s first Angel MedFlight he took with Mason. They flew a young girl with cancer and her mother to Boston for treatment. Autrey said it is why he is an Angel flyer.
They landed “with rolled out carpet in the Signature Center (at Logan Airport). About 30 feet away was Sir Paul McCartney of the Beatles. The little girl, her face just lit up, and she forgot about all her treatments.”
At Angel MedFlight and Patient AirLift Services, pilots use their planes to fly people to medical centers, Autrey said.
When someone is very sick or injured and needs to get to a Boston hospital their options are a five-hour drive or a one-hour flight. “Zoom, zoom,” Autrey said.
The town airport is open 24 hours a day and charges no fees for landing, overnight parking, or use of the electrical stations for engine heaters. Inside the terminal is a guestbook with comments ranging from “came by to eat dinner in town,” to “brother-in-law’s 40th run up Mt. Washington,” to “stopped for bathroom” to “wife and I love the bikes.” It was a reference to the four bikes donated by Maine Aeronautics Association for pilots to get around Bethel for free.
Locals use the airport, too, reserving the conference room online to have a meeting or work in an air conditioned, quiet space.
“My father-in-law donated all the land the (airport) sits on, so for me it’s personal,” Autrey said.
Dick Davis of L.E. Davis Lumber on the Bethel Parkway “saw aviation way back in its early days… That’s what is in it for me. It’s family driven. I am trying to honor his legacy,” Autrey said.
Autrey has been a pilot since he joined the Navy in 1979. Besides managing the airport he is also a flight instructor. “I get to share the excitement with other people,” he said.
Bethel Deputy Airport Manager Randy Autrey Rose Lincoln/The Bethel Citizen
While the building’s lounge, conference and pilot rooms are large and bright, Autrey’s office is a windowless shoebox, which “is the only way to get work done.”
One computer tracks every plane that comes in and Autrey reports those to the state.
Another computer has all the gate codes so they can monitor everyone who comes in that way. The bleeping on his phone is for motion within the building. He sees everything via the cameras, too.
A sign on the refrigerator lets patrons know there is an honor system for snacks and drinks.
This winter a few local snowmobile clubs may do an antique snowmobile parade on the sides of the runway, which they did once before.
Once the runway is groomed, he said, people who fly planes on skis on the lakes in the winter will come to Bethel fore fuel.
He hopes next year’s Fall Fly-In will include an antique car and street rod show that will “put us on the map.”
The airport will look different, too, with possibly four new hangars that have been proposed.
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