Brantford’s local airplane owners and pilots association, COPA Flight 148, and the Ninety-Nines’ Maple Leaf chapter, have teamed up to launch the first “Let’s Discover Aviation Now” event, which will be held at the Brantford Municipal Airport on Saturday, September 20, 2025.
Cailyx Madensky, Chair of the Ninety-Nines’ Maple Leaf chapter, said that while the two entities have hosted their own separate, but similar, events in the past (the Ninety-Nines’ “Let’s Fly Now” and COPA’s Discover Aviation Day), this year they decided to join forces and host one big event.
“COPA Flight 148 usually does an event similar to ours, but theirs was always geared to both males and females, whereas ours was geared more towards females,” she said. “Now, a lot of our pilots that flew in our event, also flew for COPA’s and so we got together after last year’s season and decided that since we were both using our time and resources to put on two different events that were only a couple months apart, we should team up and put on a bigger, better event.”
Madensky said that registration for the event officially opened on Friday, August 1, and that organizers are looking to have around 100 participants, aged 14 and up, come out for a free introductory flight in a small aircraft.
“We’ll do an educational safety session in the classroom and a hanger tour beforehand, and then everyone will take turns going up on their free introductory flight with one of our great volunteer pilots,” she said. “The flights will probably end up being around 30 minutes this year, and we’ll likely be flying over the Scotland-Oakland area, over Waterford and then back around to the Brantford airport.”
During the event, participants will also receive goodie bags with the phonetic alphabet, stickers and different resources from both organizations, and after completing their flight, they’ll receive a first flight certificate.
For those interested in taking part in the event, spaces are limited and pre-registration is required. Participants can sign up, choose their desired time slot and download the liability waiver and photo release agreements by visiting: https://discoveraviation.org/CYFD/index.php
Madensky said that everyone from both organizations are looking forward to their collaboration and to sharing their love of flying with others.
“Everyone’s super excited. We have had lots of planning meetings, and there’s been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, but it’s all starting to really come together. I love running events like this because I think that it’s just a great way to get people involved in aviation not just as a hobby but as a career path too. They get to come out, enjoy the day, see that it’s run by volunteers and leave with a big smile on their face. It’s all about learning about aviation in an educational, impactful and fun way. Once you go up, you’ll never want to come down… trust me.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
