Tour Summary - by Steve Cos

In the Airport Watch’s usual fashion and with the efforts of one of its members we were able to set up a tour at Goderich Aircraft Inc. http://www.goderichaircraft.com/ located in Huron Park, Ontario also known as Centralia. Special thanks go to David Perston for setting up this visit and planning the morning tour of these fine facilities. We started by organizing a few carpools (some that worked and some that didn’t) and arranging a meeting spot. In this case we met in Lucan, a small Ontario town north of London with a Tim Horton’s of course! This was the staging area once everyone arrived. We all headed up to the airfield and followed David to the parking area at GAI. The tour started with coffee and muffins for those that were interested and the introduction of Andy Orr and Todd Stewart our tour hosts. Then off to the hanger area. Each hanger is divided into different departments and includes a hanger for major overhauls which housed a Dash 8 and Citation 525 being rebuilt after a crash landing in Europe. The paint stripping bay (on this visit it included 4 aircraft, a Citation 650, Lear 31, Cessna 441 plus one other small aircraft.) Quite the sight watching paint drip to the floor with the environmentally friendly paint stripper. We headed outside to see a brand new CRJ700  that was there for the application of stripes. This aircraft has yet to be delivered. We continued on our tour by entering the spray booth that included a Saab 340 and an Aerocommander 695. Large booth with excellent lighting and a filtering system. The Saab was recently painted all white and was in the process of being untaped.

Next we entered the Interior Department that had a display of custom leather seats for biz-jets and also the woodshop where a few workers were polishing some custom made veneered fixtures. Andy saved the best for last! The MD-87 that is in for a year long upgrade to an Executive Airliner. This is GAI’s biggest project. The aircraft is stripped of most of its interior and the paint has been stripped as well. We were shown the blueprints outlining the upgrade, should look great when it's done.

We concluded our tour by thanking our hosts Andy and Todd. Dave presented each with an Airport Watch baseball cap and "stress berries" (a foam blackberry) that got a good laugh by all! Our gratitude goes to the staff at Goderich Aircraft who took time out on their Saturday morning to meet us and walk us through this great facility. And of course Dave Perston for arranging this wonderful tour! It was great to see the YYZ Airport Watch members out in their element taking pictures and logging rare aircraft.

Photo Gallery - Click on images for a larger view
Photos by Airport Watch member and tour organizer David Perston
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