RCAF Station Pennfield Ridge RCAF Station Pennfield Ridge was a Royal Canadian Air Force training base located in coastal Charlotte County , New Brunswick in the hamlet of Pennfield Ridge . History . Construction of the aerodrome began in the summer of 1940 after a suitable site was selected on a ridge high above the surrounding coastal plain of the north shore of the Bay of Fundy , east of the town of St . George . Proximity to a Canadian Pacific Railway line running between St . Stephen and Saint John eased the transport of building materials . General contractor Dexter Construction had 200 workers on the project by August 1940 and the runways were finished by November . The base was located southwest of the Camp Utopia , an army training facility for southwestern New Brunswick . The first test flights took place on January 1 , 1941 and the base officially opened on July 21 of that year , housing No . 2 Air Navigation School ( ANS ) and later No . 34 Operational Training Unit ( OTU ) , under the command of the No . 3 Training Command , which was headquartered in Montreal as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan ( BCATP ) . By the end of summer 1941 , over 40 buildings were constructed on the base , including 4 large hangars , an observation tower , barracks , drill hall , mess halls and classrooms , along with a water supply and internal telephone system . The three runways were lengthened in the fall of 1941 into the classic BCATP triangle arrangement . The air base was decommissioned by the RCAF toward the end of World War II , with air force activities in eastern Canada being concentrated at RCAF Station Greenwood , RCAF Station Debert , RCAF Station Summerside and RCAF Station Chatham . The Pennfield Ridge base became the operational location for Heavy Transport until it was purchased several years later and operated by a commercial airline company as an alternative to the inadequate airport serving Saint John at Millidgeville . After the new Saint John Airport was opened in the early 1950s , Pennfield Ridge closed as an operational airfield . One of its runways was used as a drag racing track by the New Brunwsick Drag Racing Association during the 1950s - 1970s . Today , 2 of the 3 runways are used for drying seaweed which is then marketed as a natural plant fertilizer . The remaining runway is still able to handle small aircraft under visual flight rules ( VFR ) conditions ; there is a small fuel reserve tank for the use of J . D . Irving Limited and New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources aircraft . Less than to the east of the airfield is the location of the Jim Mollison landing in August 1932 , in which Mollison completed the first solo east - to - west transatlantic flight . His aircraft was a de Havilland Puss Moth ( G - ABXY ) dubbed " " The Heart ' s Content " " . On September 24 , 2006 , a memorial was erected at a nearby park in Pennfield by " The Charlotte County War Memorial Committee " to honor the sixty men that died while on training at Pennfield Ridge . Subsequent research by Pennfield Parish Military Historical Society shows that they are seventy men who died while training at Pennfield Ridge . There was also six civilian casualties as well .