Discovering the Maine Center for Classic Aviation

One day while on vacation in Maine, I opened my Facebook page and found a post titled “Thompson Memorial Field,” which had a nice picture of a plane making a landing on a grass strip somewhere in the state.

I’m not sure how they found me, but I am glad they did.

It turns out that Thompson Memorial Field (ME62) is about four miles west of Pittsfield, Maine, and you really have to get out the magnifying glass to locate it on the Montreal Sectional.

My wife Joan and I decided to try to find this rural airdrome, so we entered the address into the car’s GPS and struck out on some of the back roads of Central Maine to find them. After a couple of wrong turns, we were successful.

This is a private airport with a 2,500 foot x 100-foot turf runway. The grass is well manicured and appears to be nice and flat with no soft spots. There are trees at either end and on one side, but they don’t seem to crowd the airstrip too badly and there is plenty of taxi room.

There is a large, new Quonset hut prefab hangar on one side big enough to house five or six small planes. On the opposite side there are three smaller hangars.

There is no fuel at ME62, so you have to plan ahead, but there is plenty about four miles away at the Pittsfield Municipal Airport (KPSF).

When I went online to check the place out, I discovered this is a haven for airplane builders and folks who enjoy restoring old classic aircraft. 

They also spend a lot of time exposing young people to the wonders of flight by giving them airplane rides and teaching them how to work on planes.

Airport officials have formed a 501c-3 non-profit organization to help them fund this youth program under the name Maine Center for Classic Aviation.

On the day we visited, we met Sam Canders, who is one of the airstrip owners, the builder of the new Quonset hangar, and a man who owns a beautiful yellow Pietenpol wood and fabric aircraft.

This is a plans-built plane of Bernard Pietenpol’s 1929 design that he once published in Popular Mechanics. I am partial to Pietenpols because I have been working on one for several years now. 

Sam’s Pietenpol was built by Larry Williams of Erlanger, Kentucky.

According to Sam, the plane cruises at 55 mph and stalls at 35 mph. Its useful load is one adult and one lightweight child, he added.

Sam, who is now building another Pietenpol Air Camper, graciously offered to pull his Pietenpol out of the hangar so I could take pictures.

Then he said, “how would you like to hear the engine”?

Of course, I said yes!

He called over his friend Jason Scholten to help him start it up while he spun the prop. After about three pulls and a couple of throttle adjustments, the old Ford Model-A engine purred like a kitten.

Back in the day, Ford Model-A engines were plentiful and inexpensive, so that was what backyard airplane builders used.    

It turns out Jason, who was helping to groom the airfield when we visited, is building a Zenith STOL CH-750.

Both of these guys are pretty resourceful. Sam built the big prefab Quonset hangar, then added the vertical accordion door system to the front of it. That was his own design and it seems to work very well.

Jason, a welder by trade, designed and built powered horizontal bifold doors for the three smaller hangars.  

They also pulled out a great looking blue and white restoration of an Aeronca Super Chief done by one of their members, Robert Johnston.

This turned out to be a serendipitous visit made on the spur of the moment to meet two builder pilots and get some pictures of some great old classics.

Interested in visiting ME62? Call Sam Canders for permission to land at 207- 392-3860.