GREENVILLE, Maine — From 800 feet above Moosehead Lake, pilot Keith Strange dipped his left wing, gently turning the Cessna 180 Skywagon to provide a panoramic view of the action below.
The majestic steamship Katahdin sat at its dock, and along the nearby shoreline, tiny spectators practiced what will become the pose of the weekend: They craned their necks skyward and watched as yet another plane came in for a landing in the sheltered cove.
While Greenville and Moosehead Lake are popular through all seasons, as hunters, campers, hikers, anglers and moose-watchers flock here, this weekend marks one of the busiest times of the year: The International Seaplane Fly-In, which is back for its 43rd edition and runs through Sunday.
Strange, who has been involved in the event since 1978, and now serves on the fly-in board of directors and as contest coordinator, said its origins were quite modest.
“Back in the middle ‘70s, the local pilots got together at the end of the season and said, ‘Well, maybe we ought to have a little gathering, get all our friends together and invite as many as we can, and have a little fly-in here at the lake, in the cove,’” Strange said.
The event took off, and it is a Greenville mainstay to this day.
“We tend to have 50 to 60 seaplanes arrive, and then anywhere from 100 to 200 aircraft arrive up at the airport,” Strange said. “So it’s not just a seaplane fly-in. It’s sort of a fly-in for all events.”
Strange said when the weather’s good — as it’s expected to be on Saturday — 3,000 people might line the shores of Moosehead for the fly-in, and take advantage of shopping opportunities and a craft fair downtown, which is just a few hundred yards from the seaplane base.
“During [competitions] you’ll see airplanes taking off and landing about every minute. You’ll see large families, they’ll have lawnchairs spread all over the place,” Strange said. “On a good day, with a lot of planes here, this will be a sea of people here, with not a place to stand or sit. “
Saturday is the main day of activities, with spot landing, taxiing, and takeoff competitions on tap. Meals and banquets are scheduled throughout the weekend, and any competitions not completed on Saturday will resume Sunday morning.
Strange said the fly-in was a natural for the area, which has long had a thriving float plane community. A change in the way people used their planes helped pave the way for the annual fly-in.
“Throughout the ‘50s and 60s, aircraft were used largely as a working tool to provide support to the outlying communities [like] up at Chesuncook Village, [and] the forest products industry and that type of thing,” Strange said. “Over time the woods roads took over, so the airplane became less and less of a tool and became more of a recreational type of an activity.”
On Friday, many pilots were still arriving in Greenville, from as far away as Ontario, Canada, and Florida, while others who flew in on Thursday took off to embark on a “poker run” that featured stops at some of the state’s fabled outdoor havens: Munsungan Lake, Chesuncook Lake and Libby Camps on Millinocket Lake. Pilots on the poker run picked up a playing card at each stop, then compiled a poker hand of those cards.
Others, however, had different ideas.
Randy Strebig, a 52-year-old from Angola, Indiana, made a quick final hop from Rangeley on Friday morning, and he got to work unloading some valuable possessions from his Maule M-7.
Quickly, the pieces of a pair of road bicycles filled the dock at Stobie Hangar.
Strebig and his significant other are both triathletes, and no matter where they go, they find ways to get training time in.
“If I had a bigger airplane, I wouldn’t have to break them down as far,” Strebig said as he laid the bicycle parts on the dock, then began assembling the bikes.
“We stayed at Rangeley Lake with some friends last night, and got a run in, an open water swim,” Strebig said. “We’re triathletes. You’ve got to keep it going. You have to earn your beer.”
Strebig said he has been attending the fly-in for at least a decade, and loves returning to Maine each September.
“I just love the Maine people. We’ve made so many great friends up here, lifelong friends, and this is really the only time that we get to see them annually,” Strebig said. “I can’t convince them to come to Indiana because it’s boring there.”
Strebig paused and laughed.
“Except for us,” he said. “We’re the excitement in Indiana.”
Strebig said he took up flying in his 30s, and he loves the camaraderie and competition that the seaplane fly-in provides.
“That’s another attraction, all the fun competition,” he said. “It’s a good thing nobody’s very competitive around here.”
He laughed again.
That was a joke. There are plenty of competitive people here, and Strebig counts himself as one of them.
“There are moments when the game face comes on, yeah,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we’re all happy to sit around, have a few beers, and laugh.”
And Strebig said that discovering the joy of flying, which he shares with this group of friends each year, has changed his life.
“It would be hard to imagine a life without airplanes now,” he said. “It would really be difficult.”
