Goshen Municipal Airport has a new business owner.
“The airport is owned by the City of Goshen,” Randy Sharkey, Goshen Municipal Airport Manager, said. “But the City of Goshen is not in the aviation business, per se, so they contract with a private firm that provides flight support services.”
The new private firm: Sweet Aviation, based out of Fort Wayne, and owned by Chuck Surack, the owner of Sweetwater Sound. Sweet Aviation bought the business from Goshen Air Center, who operated the Goshen airport since 1992.
“Sweet Aviation did their due diligence,” Starkey said. “Fortunately they saw a great opportunity to expand outside of Fort Wayne and move as far north as Goshen.”
Unlike a commercial airport, Goshen Municipal Airport works with charter services, but a large majority of the airport’s operations are flight training.
“The airport provides an avenue to learn to fly,” Starkey said. “The airport here in Goshen has a flight school called New Horizons Aviation. Sweet Aviation also has a flight school, a large flight school. That’s probably, honestly, 80 percent of the operations here at the Goshen airport, is the flight school.”
The addition of Sweet Aviation to the Goshen airport is likely to provide some infrastructure improvements in the future, possible growth to the Goshen Air Show.
“The air show is still going to happen as often as it has,” Starkey said. “If nothing else, it likely will grow, because Chuck Surack is such a phenomenal promoter of aviation. He loves sharing the gift of aviation. I could see the air show growing in the future with a larger budget to work with. The more money we have to work with, the more performers we can bring into our air shows.”
