Smokehouse Pilots Club fly-in celebrates new hangars

The social club adopted its name from a since-closed barbecue restaurant where pilots, aviation students, instructors, and aircraft owners met to discuss and encourage local aviation, flying, and safety. In just a few years the group amassed a large online and in-person following and strives to share resources, information, and opportunities that make aviation more accessible to others. Instrument-rated private pilot and Smokehouse cofounder Gabriel Muller promotes the club’s passion for aviation, often by taking non-aviators aloft in his Cirrus SR22 for their first flights. He also hosts a safety-oriented podcast and connects people who love aviation with each other. The club—which does not own any aircraft outright—strives to create opportunities that make flying more affordable and fun.

About 150 attendees walked the newly paved ramp, sampled local beer (available for the non-flyers), played games, or tried their hand at an aircraft simulator. A dozen pilots flew in for the annual gathering to socialize and to talk with visitors about their aircraft.

Leesburg, Virginia, Mayor Kelly Burk wielded a large pair of scissors while Vice Mayor Neil Steinberg, airport director Scott Coffman, Muller, and others stretched blue fabric across the front of a new hangar. Burk snipped the ribbon and officially opened the new facility.

The hangar project was initiated in 2019, and construction began in the fall of 2022. The development includes 26 new T-hangars, three corporate box hangars, 11 new tiedown spaces, and additional parcels that offset the demolition of several older hangars eliminated for FAA runway separation standards compliance. The airport operates in a cutout from the Washington, D.C., special flight rules area. It currently leases 96 T-hangars with rates between $500 and $850 per month, depending on size.

In other news, Leesburg Executive Airport moved from a remote air traffic control tower to a mobile control tower June 14 despite a grass-roots effort led by the Smokehouse Pilots Club and others to maintain the remote ATC facility in the interests of safety—a stance shared by AOPA.

An early morning fire at the airport June 25 destroyed several aircraft hangered elsewhere on the grounds, but there were no reports of injuries, local television station WAVY reported. “As fellow aviation enthusiasts, it’s devastating to see the destruction that this fire caused,” Muller, whose airplane was not damaged, wrote in a social media post. “Planes and possessions can and will be replaced. But the friendships and support we have for and with each other, cannot be replaced. And that’s most important.”