Imagine a world with a private airport around every corner and an airplane in every garage. Where your form of ID could just as easily be a pilot’s license as a driver’s license and your weekend is spent with people with names like “Red” and “Speed” and “Ace”.

That’s the world Walt Winnicki grew up in, learning to fly on Long Island in the early 1950s. And that’s the world that Bob Mott and the Bayport Aerodrome Society is trying to preserve.

On this episode, both men relate their long history and love of flying. We also discuss the lost world of private airfields and the near miraculous survival of the Bayport Aerodrome, built by Curtis Davis out of his family’s corn field right after World War II.

Research

• Bayport Aerodrome Society
• Cradle of Aviation Museum
• Long Island Airports
• 50 Years Later, ‘Blind’ Flight is Routine (NYT)
• The Brunner Winkle Bird
• Biplane noise from Freesound.org (by Loveburd)