Tucked away on a side road off a side road is one of Belfast's most understated resource and finest spots in the community, its Municipal Airport. Small planes come and go on the asphalt runways that stretch out, meeting on either side spacious stretches of mown green grass. Red hangars, appearing modest from the outside, open their big doors and reveal spotless bays home to well-tended aircraft.

WildShore will host an open house as part of the Maine Pilots' Association coffee and donuts from 9 to 11 a.m. at Belfast Airport, Hangar 14.  All are welcome (flying or driving). The airport entrance is on Wright Brothers Drive, off of Congress Street.

The Belfast Municipal Airport, on the aptly named Wright Brothers Drive, has been for decades the place where those with a passion for flying gather and sustain a strong aviation community. It is where those compadres of the skies, like sailors at the harbor, share their notes and experiences. They talk shop and dream about their next flights.

And they want others to join them in cultivating a love for flying. 

Jonathan Ward and Casey Raymond have teamed to open an aviation school, WildShore Aviation, at the airport to do just that: Introduce future pilots to the world of aircraft, to get them off the ground and flying a small plane, safely and competently.

They have been slowly building their school over the past year, and on Saturday, July 18, they will welcome interested visitors to an open house at the hangar they have made their home base.

Ward, who is a Lincolnville firefighter and a member of the Coastal Mountain Search and Rescue team, is also a pilot long associated with the Belfast airport. Casey Raymond is 21 and has graduated from flight school in Augusta. They met three years ago when Ward was working for a flight school and decided they wanted to team up for the WildShore venture.

"I was assigned to be her instructor, and we became good friends as she progressed through her flight ratings while pursuing an aviation degree at UMA," said Ward. "We decided we wanted to work together professionally, and began to plan for opening a flight school.”

They met with Dave Aldrich, a retired Air Force pilot who keeps a Piper Cherokee training aircraft stationed in Belfast, among his other planes. He is also an aircraft mechanic, and now Ward and Raymond are in the process of getting aircraft mechanic credentials through an 18-month training program.

"Together we formed a partnership, WildShore Aviation, and began offering flight training," said Ward. "As a retired Air Force pilot, Dave has a history of instructing. Casey finished her flight instructor training about a year ago and I have been a flight instructor since 2001."

The three of them are now thinking of adding another Piper Aircraft Cherokee to the fleet.

A staple of flight training worldwide, the Cherokee 140 (horsepower) is one of the most popular light trainers, Ward said. The Cherokee (which they have named as Wendy) WildShore is now using is a four-seat, single engine aircraft built in 1965, but has undergone an avionics upgrade, he said.

"The model has been enormously popular as a training aircraft for over six decades, and is the fourth most-produced light aircraft in history," said Ward. "They are lightweight and can take a fair amount of punishment from students learning to fly. It's iconic.”

"It is also very easy, and very stable," said Raymond. "The plane is a good trainer because it is so responsive. You can feel what the controls are doing. And sometimes the plane just wants to fly more than you do.”

On a sunny late June morning, Raymond and Ward were moving Aldrich's Cherokee from the hangar to the runway.

"We'll go up," said Raymond, smiling.

So we went up, into the blue sky stretching over Penobscot Bay and the green trees and fields of Waldo County. In a matter of minutes, the plane was out of its hangar and in the air.

But not before a routine safety check of the Piper. Raymond circled the aircraft, running her hands over the propeller, checking for any cracks, before she did the same along the wings and tail, touching and eyeing for any stresses in the metal. She checked the oil and fuel tank, tested flight controls, and once squeezed into the seats, she ran through a preflight instrument checklist.

Raymond explained her every move through the process, a teacher at heart with a natural ease of sharing her knowledge. She is a graduate of the University of Maine at Augusta BS Aviation Program (one of two such programs in New England, and she also received the distinction of earning the Student of the Year award.

Through the UMA program, which is held in conjunction with the privately-owned Maine Instrument Flight  flight school, also in Augusta, students can earn four FAA certifications: private pilot in the first year, instrument rating in the second year, commercial pilot in the third year, and flight instructor in the fourth year.

"There are a lot of flight schools out there," said Ward. "Flying is a big commitment, so people make that commitment but sometimes find that life gets in the way. They find it becomes a long, drawn-out process, and quite expensive. We had hoped to revive the tradition of having a flight school in Belfast. There hasn't been a formal flight school here for five or six years, and we wanted to focus on those folks wanting to get the rating certification, the license."

"The piece of paper," said Raymond.

"Yes, the piece of paper that says, 'OK, I'm a pilot, now," said Ward. "Our vision is to keep the flight school simple and treat people fairly, to look at the the whole person. You find as an instructor that this is not just a job. You develop a relationship with your students, and they put their lives in your hands. In a sense, you put your life in their hands. If you do not forge a bond doing that, the instruction is going to be lacking. Casey and I share that vision of how we approach students.”

Both Ward and Raymond are qualified as instrument flight instructors, which means they are licensed to offer flight training for the entry level of Private Pilot, followed by the Instrument Rating for those who wish to fly in a wider variety of weather, and finally Commercial Pilot for those who want to make aviation a career.

They also offer Flight Instructor training.

And the Belfast Municipal Airport has likewise been energized not only with students learning to fly, but with facility improvements.

"In 2024, through the efforts of airport manager Kenn Ortmann, a fuel farm was installed at Belfast Airport," said Ward. "It provides self-serve aviation gasoline as well as jet fuel, and broadens the options of aircraft using Belfast as a destination."

"Lonny Boline, an airframe and powerplant mechanic, opened an aircraft maintenance shop in the hangar next to us in 2025. Operating under the name Ascend Air, he brought over 30 years' experience as a mechanic to Belfast, and his business is continuing to grow. With a flight school, aircraft fuel, and maintenance available, Belfast now has the widest selection of aircraft services in its history."

Tethering — rather, untethering — it all is the sheer love of flying.

"My favorite part of flying is the take-off," said Raymond. "Especially the first time you go solo. There is the moment when you feel the wheels separate from the ground, and suddenly you are flying. You realize you are of a different world."

And as she flies, she smiles instinctively. And as she lifts the Piper off the runway, steering its nose into the air with enthusiasm, the plane really does seem like it wants to fly, as Raymond said.

She got interested in flying in 2020 when she was a sophomore at Oxford Hills Technical High School, in Norway, just nearby South Paris, where she grew up.

"I had always loved the sky. I wanted to fly dragons. To be a fairy, or a bird. Maybe there was a common factor in all those things, but I never noticed," she laughed.

One day, she attended a routine aviation outreach program held by UMaine Augusta, which was next door to her school.

"They were talking about how people my age were learning how to fly," she said.

Sometimes called the "Discovery Flight", it is a common program many aviation schools hold to introduce flying to students. That sounded interesting, Raymond thought, and before she knew it, she embarked on what has become a full and rich life in aviation.

She trained in Augusta, and then moved throughout the state, wherever there was a plane she wanted to try flying. The aviation community is welcoming everywhere, she said.

"You would never know it is there unless you are in it," said. "And once you are, you see it is so supportive, so large and amazing."

Ward first got interested in flying in 1995 with the Knox County Flying Club, at Knox County Regional Airport in Owls Head.

"I caught the bug and went on from there," he said.

His first flight instructor job at Belfast was in 2001, working for Sandy Reynolds, who then owned Maine Scenic Airways.

"It was a welcoming airport back then," he said. "I remember those days, and it became part of my vision that we could have another flight school here."

A 23-foot by 13-foot mural hanging in the WildShore hangar and painted in 2014 by Belfast artist David Hurley tells that story (see photo): There's the Red Baron, the plane that Ward had formerly used for teaching students to fly. A dog trots happily nearby, and Ben Magro is coming to land with his business, Coastal Helicopters. A hangar beyond is where a 1950s plane was housed, and in the distance, the hangar that now houses WildShore. The office is open and welcoming, and planes are coming and going.

"There's some Belfast history here," said Ward.

The ambience reflected in the mural is what Raymond and Ward want to embody, a community of pilots, the experienced and the novice, learning from each other and taking to the skies to ride the currrents of air. They encourage visitors to attend the open house July 18 and invite inquiries at wildshoremaine.com.

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657