Club History

Brakpan Airfield was established in 1953 and today still forms an important part of Ekurhuleni's transport infrastructure. It mainly serves Brakpan, Benoni and Boksburg but to a certain extent also Springs, Nigel, Delmas and Heidelberg due to it's superiority over smaller airfields in those areas. Brakpan has a long tar runway, making it possible for bigger and faster as well as jet propelled aircraft to operate from it. The runway is also equipped with runway lights that can be switched on by any aircraft via radio contact, thus allowing night flying.

There are presently about 80 aircraft permanently stationed at the airfield of which the majority is owned and operated by businesses and industries in the area. There is lots of space for future expansion and development of more aircraft hangars and associated services.

The airfield is quite busy with an average of about 40 take-offs and 40 landings per day and it can easily handle much more.

The airfield is owned and maintained by the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and the Brakpan Aero Club is the license holder, making sure that the Civil Aviation Authority's rules and regulations are complied with. The club has about 200 members making it one of the biggest flying clubs in South Africa.

There are presently three flight schools at the airport, jointly training some 120 new pilots per year. Many commercial and air transport pilots are also trained here and quite a number of SAA and other big airline captains learnt to fly at Brakpan airfield. The chief flight instructor Mr Seymore Lugg, known to most as Sluggy, has been there since 1961 and is not only well known throughout South Africa but many of his former students are now flying for overseas airlines as well.

One of the few Spitfires still flying was rebuilt at Brakpan airfield and is now in the United States of America. A Mustang was also recently rebuilt at Brakpan airfield and it is now at Lanseria where it is currently being completed.

Another piece of interesting history is that the swimming pool at the clubhouse was the first gunnite pool that was built and donated by Penquin Pools. The club member then responsible for looking after the pool was Mr Ferdi Chuvier who decided that there must be an easier way and then designed, tested and developed the well known Creepy Crawly pool cleaner in that very same pool. The pool is still there today and it still has a Creepy Crawly fitted to it.