January Takes Off with Flight of Fancy
A nearly packed house enjoyed a discussion of local aviation as Joe Costa recounted his family’s involvement in the history of local and world aviation history. Costa, proprietor of Costa’s Flying Service, told some 100 retirees and guests about his family’s and the Town of Erwin’s links to the lore of flying. To be sure, another reason for the packed house – aside from the feats of his father – was the lure of a free plane ride over the scenic southern Finger Lakes in his plane…which was won by Connie Scudder.
Costa opened his program by unveiling a painting of a Lockheed Vega plane – the same type of plane flown by his father – and assured the audience that it was NOT the plane the trip winner would fly in. He then told of his father’s exploits in the early days of aviation. Costa said his dad was born in 1909 on the island of Madiera off the coast of Africa and came to the U.S. as a boy with an insatiable urge to learn to fly. His family settled in the Portuguese community north of the railroad yards in north of the city. As a teen, he went off to Syracuse to learn to fly, which he did at the age of 19…in 1929…just before the stock market crash. He had his pilot’s license, but no plane. But others in the area did, and he made enough money flying for others that he bought his own plane – a Standard Oil “Eagle,” – in 1931 at age 21.
No surprise that he caught the bug to fly across the Atlantic – a feat first done by Lindberg – and set his cap to fly with his father to Portugal. But, with the Spanish revolution raging in Iberia in 1935, our government would not grant permission for that flight. So he got permission fly to Brazil. From there, he planned to get Brazil’s permission to fly to Portugal. With his father backing out of the plan, the trip turned into a solo that got interesting at the first refueling stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he was arrested for lack of paperwork and spent a night in jail…in retrospect, it was probably the safest place in San Juan at the time. The next day he was able to continue to Brazil, but after more than 16 hours of flying in heavy downpour, he was forced to land in what appeared to be a fairly open field. It was dotted, however, with anthills, and his plane hit one, lost a wheel and crashed. The quest to fly the Atlantic thus ended.
After several months in Brazil, he returned to this area and the airfield at the time in the Erwin Junction area. With the onset of World War II, he took a job with the Civil Aviation Administration (now the FAA), and after the war started his own flying service off Victory Highway west of Painted Post.
Costa recalled that the 1950s was a tough decade for the flying business. It was pretty dull in the winter time, so his dad worked winters in a grocery on Market Street between flying seasons. Things started looking up with the arrival of the 60’s as more people were into planes and even more were into flying. In the late 70’s, Costa’s Flying Service bought the land that is the present site and young Joe got more involved in the business, eventually taking over the business in the 1980s.
Reflecting on his father’s accomplishments, he noted that the elder Costa is enshrined in the Steuben County Hall of Fame and in 1988 was honored as a member of the Aviation Pioneers before passing on Nov. 11, 1998.
Through it all, the Costa airfield continued as an “unimproved” airstrip of grass with its attendant limitations of winter and early spring landing strip conditions. Recent transfer of the land to the Town of Erwin has opened significant opportunities for both Costa’s Flying Service (which Joe still owns) and the Town of Erwin. With that transfer came federal funding for major improvements which continue today with a paved landing area, taxi runways and tarmacs, expanded hangar facilities and more. With it all, the scope of Costa’s flying service has also enjoyed prosperous growth benefiting from both the improved airstrip and the tourist appeal of flying over the southern Finger Lakes and the whole Twin Tiers area. A check of the guest lists revealed that the people who have flown in Costa’s planes have come from every continent except Antarctica.
And Joe clearly enjoys taking people up, up and away in the air over our region. Witness one response he made to a passenger who asked him in mid-flight how long he had been flying, he quickly replied: “Not all that long….but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”
One of the things Joe does while taking folks aloft is to check their cheeks. “I do that because if they are going to get sick on me, that will show up in their cheeks first.” He recounted that on one flight, an older oriental woman who spoke no English was in the right rear seat while her bi-lingual flying companion was seated in front on Joe’s right. During the flight, he kept turning back to look at the older woman. Eventually, she spoke sharply to her companion in the front seat who burst out laughing as she translated for Joe that the woman had directed her to tell Joe to stop looking back at her and pay attention to where he was going!
When Costa isn’t flying tourists, he flies wildlife check flights for the state’s Wildlife Management program. “We fly around chasing bears, coyotes and other radio-tagged animals we seldom see, but we can locate and track them by their transmitters so the government can monitor their travels and habits.” He said they even got involved in a program with a Cornell University Wildlife Survey monitoring homing pigeons as they returned to Cornell from various release locations. On one such project, a lone pigeon broke away from the flock and headed north and Joe was obliged to track it. As it neared Syracuse and Hancock Airport airspace, he broke off rather than radio Hancock control that he was “following a pigeon.” “We have no idea where that bird ended up.” Costa said.
After his talk, several in the audience gathered around to chat further with Joe and to look at the scrapbook he brought with him that included numerous photos and newspaper articles about his dad, about Costa’s Flying Service and about the Erwin Airport.
(Editor's Note: Derek Ek of The LEADER attended the January meeting and did a nice write-up about Joe, his Dad, and the airport. To read it, go to:
http://www.the-leader.com/articles/2008/01/14/news/local01.txt
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