Interview with Pilot, Bryan Hood from COPA 97
Source: Conception Bay Museum
Matthew McCarthy interviews Bryan Hood about the impact of Claude Stevenson on our town’s aviation history.
Recorded at Hr. Grace Airstrip Hangar on February 11, 2023
Interviewer: Matthew McCarthy
Videographer: Christina Hearn
Duration: 1 minute, 58 seconds
Bryan Hood: As things progressed here and Claude’s health went downhill, we started to do more and more, and Claude passed away in 2013. And, [cough], at that time we had a bunch of people who were dedicated to come out, every three weeks or a month in the summer and mow the field, helped do some maintenance on the fence, make sure the windsock is decent.
BH: And the aviation community also started growing in St. John’s around the same time that I got involved with the COPA group. It really took off so to speak and that brought more activity to the field. Because it’s a challenging little airstrip, it’s a grass airstrip, it’s got a 65 foot rock on one end of it, it’s just a neat, a neat experience, if you’re a private pilot in a small plane to, to come in here and land and a little bit challenging, and a whole lot of fun.
BH: We have a couple of events here every year and, like you say, we took over the maintenance from Claude, but without Claude’s involvement, I don’t think the Airstrip would exist and if it did exist, it wouldn’t exist in the same way. It’s easy to go around the town and say that’s where the train station used to be, that’s where the, that’s where the parish hall used to be, that’s where the church hall used to be. It’s easy to say that’s where the airport used to be, but because Claude got involved and, you know his motivation was mainly so he could fly his airplane.
BH: But because he got involved in the, in the late 60s and early 70s in maintaining it so he could fly out of here, he got it through that time. I think it would have grown over, I think it probably would have been forgotten for the most part, maybe there’d be a monument here or something, but Claude kept it going enough to get it into the into the modern age, we’ll call it.