Get extra lift from AOPA. Start your free membership trial today! Click here

Smashing pumpkins

An explosive end for the orange gourd

Why? But then again, why not? Why do we delight so much in the sound of a pumpkin smashing?

Photography by Michelle Walker
Zoomed image
Photography by Michelle Walker

What did that orange gourd ever do to you? But from those rotten teenagers stealing the Jack O’Lantern from your porch and smashing it into the street to the target practice it seems to irresistibly invite, pumpkin smashing is an unofficial pastime in the fall. And pilots join in the delight. Pumpkin drops are held across the country at small airfields from Missouri to Mississippi and from Iowa to Oregon. Aircraft from Cessna 152s to antique aircraft such as biplanes, drop or hurl pumpkins from the cockpit onto targets such as scarecrows, wrecked airplanes, X marks the spot, and even an old boat. People win prizes for closest to the target. The whole experience is governed by FAR 91.15: take reasonable precautions.

Here are a few of the places we know of that traditionally have had pumpkin drops (let us know what we missed):

  • Bauman’s Harvest Festival, Gervais, Oregon
  • Blakesburg, Iowa’s Antique Airfield (IA27)
  • Greater Breezewood Regional Airport, Pennsylvania (P17)
  • Chapman Farms, Seattle, Washington
  • Dodge County Airport, Juneau, Wisconsin (UNU)
  • Grimes Airfield, Bethel, Pennsylvania (8N1)
  • Kenai Municipal Airport (ENA), Alaska (The Great Alaskan Pumpkin Drop)
  • Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, New York (NY94)
  • Smartt Field, St. Charles Flying Service, Missouri (SET)
  • Slobovia Pumpkin Drop, Flora, Mississippi (MS71)

[email protected]

Julie Walker
Julie Summers Walker
AOPA Senior Features Editor
AOPA Senior Features Editor Julie Summers Walker joined AOPA in 1998. She is a student pilot still working toward her solo.

Related Articles