Hobby Airport’s Air Terminal Museum
Fly-ins offer a chance to explore small airports, with their quirky appeal and hidden assets, and this weekend provides plenty of opportunities. SocialFlight makes it easy to find events near and far using their free website and app. This weekend, Benton Airport, in Benton, Pennsylvania, hosts an Open House on Saturday, with a ham roast for lunch, homemade ice cream and pie, airplane rides and hayrides, and lots of aircraft, antique cars, and motorcycles on display amid the fall colors. The sixth-annual event is a fundraiser to help build more hangar space at the small private field.
Aviation museums also make for great destinations, and this Saturday, the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Houston Hobby Airport in Texas hosts its monthly open-house event. Admission is free for fly-in visitors. This month’s open-house theme at the museum features the Globe Swift, which was produced in Texas. “This aircraft had fighter-plane looks that made it a real eye-catcher,” the museum website says. About 1,500 were built in the 1940s and ’50s. And in New England, you can catch the peak fall colors at Cranland Airport, in Hanson, Massachusetts. Sunday morning they’ll host the last fly-in of the year, with a pancake breakfast. You can find events at airports around the country via SocialFlight.
