Rungeling dies prior to name gracing airport signs
This year will mark three years since Niagara Central Airport was renamed Niagara Central Dorothy Rungeling Airport — but the airport’s sign still hasn’t changed.
And now, sadly, she won’t see that change.
The Order of Canada recipient died Saturday at age 106.
The name of the airport was changed in 2015 in honour of Rungeling, who earned the nickname “Canada’s Flying Housewife.”
After she got her pilot’s licence in 1949, she competed in several air race competitions and earned a number of accolades, such as receiving the Amelia Earhart Medal and being the first Canadian woman to hold an airline transport licence.
She was the first Canadian woman to fly a helicopter solo and was also the first woman to serve on Pelham town council.
In an interview last week. Richard Rybiak, chair of the airport commission, said it’s a matter of funding that’s holding up the change in signage at the airport.
He said updating and repairing the airport’s runways and taxiways over the past couple of years has taken priority over changing the sign.
Those updates and repairs will be completed this year.
The Pelham airport’s funding comes from two places. Operating and capital funds are contributed by the four municipalities that own it — Welland, Pelham, Port Colborne and Wainfleet — and the rest comes from the airport itself. Rybiak said 50 per cent or more of the airport’s funds are generated internally.
He said a number of the people on the commission, himself included, are councillors in the municipalities that own the airport. Because of that, they understand municipal budget issues and that only so much can be allocated to the airport.
He’s hoping they’ll be able to include the sign change into next year’s capital budget, especially becuase the airport will be hosting the 2019 Air Race Classic. The event will see many pilots coming to the airport to compete.
“We would want to be sure the airport is in the kind of condition that we would want to represent it to the rest of the world,” he said.
Pricing for a new sign hasn’t been explored yet, but Rybiak said apart from the cost of the sign itself, the project would also involve repainting the side of the main hangar to accommodate the new sign.
When the name change was proposed and approved in 2015, he said, the people who requested the change had the idea to fundraise the money for the sign.
For whatever reason, that didn’t pan out.