Dryden Airport, Focus of Club on October 19th

Posted by John Borst on Oct 12, 2016

Norman Sanders, manager of the Dryden Regional Airport (DRA) spoke to the club about the future of our municipal airport.

Norm has been employed at the Airport for many years and has been the Manager since 2012

The airport was built in 1969 by Transport Canada and transferred to City of Dryden in 1996.

However, deregulation of the skies during the 1980’s reduced passenger air traffic significantly. Where once NordAir, later Canadian Pacific Air, once flew 737 jets into Dryden, today we see only Bearskin twin turbine engine, 19 passenger Fairchild Metroliners.

Today the main users are now Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) fire-fighting aircraft , the military, air ambulances, freight carriers Discovery Air, and Kasper Aviation, plus Bearskin at about 15%.

The DRA is not yet self-sufficient and still gets capital grants from the Federal government.

During 2017, MNR expansion will likely see some spinoff for the airport.

Questions from the floor dealt with drones, moving a military base to Dryden, picking blueberries on airport property and the impact of wild animals on the runway.

The largest plane the airport can handle is a B737. There was also a discussion of the crosswind runway which is no longer in use.