Along the banks of the Connecticut River, hidden behind a dike built to protect the city and surrounding area from the occasional, devastating floods caused by the river breaching its banks, is Brainard Airport. KHFD is an unpolished jewel of the general aviation industry.
Since the 1950s the cry has gone up from time to time that the airport should be closed and developed as a mixed-use residential and commercial plat of land. The theory most often put forward proclaims that housing, movie theaters, retail shops, and parks would be a better, more economically beneficial use of the property.
This is an almost inexcusably myopic view of how real estate development works in the real world.
It completely misses the value of having direct access to Connecticut’s capital city by air.
It also ignores the reality that productive, economically beneficial development of the land does not preclude its use as an airport — a use that has been in place since the airport’s founding in 1921, long before those who clamor for shuttering this proud facility owned homes and businesses in the neighboring communities.
In the interest of full disclosure, it is worth mentioning that I am a pilot, an aircraft mechanic, a writer, and a full-time You Can Fly Ambassador for the AOPA Foundation. My career owes a specific debt to Brainard Airport, the air traffic controllers, flight instructors, mechanics, and administrators who make the facility run.
My initial flight training was done at Brainard more than 33 years ago. On Oct. 26, 1988, I flew solo for the first time from Runway 2 at Brainard Airport. My flight instructor was a young man named Keir Johnson.
It’s worth knowing that my experience was not an aberration. I am not an outlier.
What is often missed when calculating the value of a facility like Brainard Airport is its educational and vocational worth. Its profound capacity to create opportunity for individuals young and old, from all walks of life, who choose to involve themselves in aviation as a hobby or a career, is undeniable.
This is where development efforts would have their most impactful result. Should the city of Hartford, the Connecticut Airport Authority, the Hartford School District, and private industry find a way to work collaboratively, the potential economic impact of Brainard Airport would skyrocket. Not just for the property owners, the tax collectors, and the business interests, but for the thousands upon thousands of individuals whose lives could be reinvigorated by the potential this airport could offer.
Rest assured this is no pie in the sky dreaming from an aviation enthusiast. This is a verifiable fact. Communities all over the United States have seen the light, developed educational facilities on or adjacent to airports, and reaped the benefits.
Aviation High School in Long Island City, New York, is a prime example. As is the Central Florida Aerospace Academy in Lakeland, Florida. Both prepare their students for college and careers in a growing, high-paying field that has international reach.
Lakeland Linder International Airport is perhaps most nearly aligned with the issue vexing Hartford and those who wish to close the airport. Prior to the establishment of the aviation high school on the field, more than 100,000 square feet of hangar and office space was vacant. The airport had little connection to the community as a whole. In a corner of the world that was agricultural in nature, where income was well below the national average, the outlook was bleak.
A decade later Lakeland’s airport hosts a high school, a state college, five economically viable flight schools, two hotels, and a plethora of independent businesses that thrive not in spite of the decision to include educational institutions on the field, but because of it.
Economically beneficial development of a property does not require us to throw out the old in order to replace it with the new. Rather, it behooves us to look at the potential of using the land as it is currently being used, but in a more productive, effective, and far-reaching manner.
Get creative. Look to other communities that have effectively developed their languishing airports into hubs of activity and commerce with educational programs that enrich the local populace.
Ironically, in 1921, the same year Brainard Field came into being, another Connecticut city was on the ropes. Whaling as an industry came to an end in Mystic in that same year. With their bread and butter industry coming to a halt, Mystic took the long-term approach of re-envisioning its potential. Through that process this historic town established itself as one of the most alluring tourist attractions on the East coast.
They reinvented their seaport to be viable as a 20th and 21st Century tourist attraction, rather than as a 19th Century whaling village.
Hartford could do much the same thing by recognizing the tremendous value they possess in the form of Brainard Airport — an advantage their neighboring cities and towns simply don’t have and can’t affordably replicate.
Beyond the educational benefits of such a shift, the career opportunities it would present, and the convenience of having a thriving airport located in the Capital city, there is the undeniable economic benefit of revamping the airport into a more modern version of itself.
Professional flight training can easily run into the $100,000 range for each participant. The bulk of those flight students will come from elsewhere, bringing large volumes of out-of-town dollars to Hartford. For not only do they pay for flight training, they also rent apartments, buy clothes, eat in restaurants, avail themselves of entertainment, and buy cars.
There is a gold mine sitting beside the Connecticut River in Hartford. The question is, will those with the authority and responsibility to operate the facility in the best interest of the community, truly choose to do so?
One can only hope, they will.
Another water from airport will be in the local news. The new mayor of St. Petersburg Florida has instructed his staff to look into the financial impact of KSPG.
HVN or Tweed New Haven airport is experiencing a rebirth with Avelo offering 737 N/S service to six Florida cities. For decades the airport was viewed as a loser, a drain of local taxes but he right combination came along with plans to extend the runway, build a new terminal and an end of local tax funding.
Flights are doing well with load factors in the 80’s percentiles and another city is to announced soon. Trying to build a new airport today is a monumental task whereas upgrading a present airport is good economic sense.
Like the author, KHFD was where I learned to fly and this news just makes me shake my head. The location of HFD made for some of the best cross country flying to some great airports KBID, KMTP, KCQX, KPVC, KPSM, KMVY just to name a few. I used to love evening flights inbound from the East when RWY 20 was in use. Making a left base entry over the City of Hartford with the sun hitting “The Gold Building” (UTC’s old HQ) made for some beautiful views.
I know, nostalgia doesn’t keep airports open only local aviation involvement does. If anything rang true over the past couple years is how GA airports kept things and businesses moving. We as a GA community need to promote and show how integral GA is to business and commerce. As EVTOL gains traction, airports like HFD will be perfectly placed to move folks between Boston & New York City for meetings instead of BDL. I hope Connecticut sees the value and invests in HFD for the long term.
As a kid I lived in rural SW Massachusetts, a trip to Bradley Field to watch the airplanes land was a treat and getting to walk among the cool private planes at Brainard lit up my imagination. Same with going to Hartford as a special trip to go out to eat! Life events took me far away from life in New England and upon moving back and up to NH making the drive from S NH to NY City for meetings, trans-versing CT north to south was stunning in how empty the roads are.
I can drive the speed limit through Hartford at what used to be rush hour. There appears to be so little left of CT. The state needs help and taking away another civic landmark and contributor to the local economy does not make any sense. It has been proven that airports contribute to not only the local economy but are also places of learning and fascination. Please keep up the good fight and save your airport!
Since the FAA Director Huerta rolled over for the City of Santa Monica, other jurisdictions have become emboldened. Reid-Hillview Airport in Northern California is under severe pressure from Santa Clara County and the leaded fuel, threat of danger from crashing planes are excuses, as well as residents wanting “affordable housing” (really thinking “free”)
It’s hard to buck the arguments since people think they can get free stuff if an airport is closed, and the economic benefits are ignored.
Flabob Airport (KRIR) is another example. It was almost closed and scraped in 1999, but was saved when it was bought by a nonprofit, The Tom Wathen Center, devoted to education through aviation. It is one of the largest employers in its city, and is home to a branch of the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, teaching A&P students; and to an aviation-themed secondary school. It is Headquarters for the American Aviation Historical Society, and for the Quiet Birdmen.
As a former Connecticut Airport Director, State Aviation Administrator and past Commissioner of the CT Department of Transportation I couldn’t agree more with your comments.
The saga of local politicians eyeing State owned Brainard Airport is nothing short of shameful. The motivation behind their efforts has long been recognized as a self serving desire for land development that will ultimately line their pockets and those of their cronies. In fact, their moves through the years have already reduced the size of Brainard’s airport layout plan to a mere shadow of it’s original self. Fortunately it retains enough land and aeronautical capabilities that allow it to continue as a viable and important facility. But folks, we’re not talking about an airport that has acreage to spare. Far from it. Anyone who attended AOPA’s New England regional meetings at Brainard in 2007 and again in 2011 will tell you that facilities like the neighboring local water and sewer district have already pushed their encroachment to the legal limits.
Long before Bradley International Airport (Brainard’s big brother to the north) was deemed the best location to serve Central New England’s commercial air service (switching from it’s former use as a military field) Brainard hosted commercial service from the likes of American Airlines, one of the North East’s earliest commercial carriers. We’re talking the 1930’s / 40’s. We’re talking about the first U.S. airport that Lindberg stopped at as he began his “victory lap” of flights around the country following the Atlantic crossing. And while it’s passenger service would ultimately move, the airport continued, to be deemed a releaver for KBDL, “releaving” it’s larger counterpart of much private and corporate traffic.
Locally there are those in the Greater Hartford area who may allege that all of this is historical. That it is a reflection of what the airport used to be. But in fact the airport continues to host numerous viable businesses and an aeronautical educational facility of significance.
Connecticut AERO Tech is a school that teaches aviation maintenance courses. It was born out of an initiative to move the aviation tech program from the H.H. Ellis School in Danielson CT to Brainard Airport. The FAA Repair Station license held by Ellis Tech is/was the oldest, earliest such license held by a public school anywhere in the US. At it’s height the school produced young aviation mechanics who went on to serve the State’s aircraft manufacturers, numerous airlines and the U.S. military.
But it’s remote rural location hampered it. Fortunately, an initiative comprised of educators, a highly respected State Representative and the State DOT pursued moving the license and program to a new facility to be built at Brainard. The idea was to bring a trade program into the city so as to encourage urban youth to consider becoming aviation technicians. Not only did the ensuing move attract these students it attracted many more. So much so that the former rural location which had dwindled to fewer than a dozen students flourished in it’s new location with a waiting list for enrollment.
There’s more. There have been pilot groups that have built new hangars and refurbished older ones at Brainard.
Area businessmen have sought office and other space on the airport from which to conduct their daily dealings.
Simply put, the airport continues to host many with individual stories that contribute to the state and it’s citizens.
Yet local special interests with hidden agendas continue to ignore the realities and successes of the ongoing aviation services offered at Brainard. They embellish upon social “speak” that plays to those who don’t truly understand the economic contribution broght to a community by smaller local airports.
To paraphrase something you’ve undoubtedly heard I’ll add: Give me a mile of highway or 100 condos or 175 apartments or five retail stores or another big box store and you’ll have a mile of highway or 100 condos or 175 apartments or five retail stores or another big box store.
But give me a mile of runway and I’ll give you the world.
Yet one more time let’s help the people of Connecticut understand these issues. Gather the economic facts. Present the facts. And save a valuable asset.
Save Brainard!
Well Jamie,
I don’t believe that anyone reading the GAN would disagree with you. Excuse me for not thinking of a more original phrase, but you are “Preaching to the Choir”. I hope that your message is published in Hartford area newspapers so that the local civic leaders can be persuaded.
Bob