After last night’s rain we were a little nervous about the weather. Waking up to IMC it didn’t look good, but as airplanes circled overhead we knew it was thin. About 10am the clouds opened up a bit and the dam broke on the airplanes flooding in. Dozens arrived one after the other making it a busy morning for the parking crew.

The day turned out to be a beautiful one with the temperatures staying a bit cooler. We had a great turnout of antiques and vintage airplanes and a lot of people driving in.

Here are a few pictures from today, more on the way including some of our award winners…

Well after a lot of work all week (and for the past few weeks), the fly in is finally here. The weather forecast for the weekend has been nothing but CAVU and warm temperatures. Even this morning was forecast clear skies all weekend. But by afternoon it was apparent that was going to change. Eventually a monster thunderstorm developed over the North Cascades and flowed west over Concrete. The result was torrential rain for about 15 minutes with thunder and lightening as people scrambled to cover open cockpits and run for cover. Eventually the rain subsided, but everything was quite wet. The upside is the grass should be a bit greener in the near future and the fire danger is down.

Hopefully the weather will look better tomorrow for the busiest day of the fly in. There should be some great planes flying in and scroll down a post to see the schedule for the weekend. Hope to see you up here!

The weather is looking good, the grass is mowed and the planes are arriving. Tonight there will be a movie at the museum’s hangar and tomorrow is the big day with lots to see and do. For a complete schedule of events check out the image below. We hope to see you here and look forward to a great weekend.

A group of r/c airplane pilots had a fly in over the weekend. Despite some windy conditions, they flew their large scale models throughout the weekend. Some of the planes are remarkable in their detail, and even more remarkable in their size. Several 1/4 scale planes were present and a few that were even bigger. One of the pilots had a Yak 55 with a 19 horsepower engine!!

We’re currently getting ready for the Vintage Fly In this coming weekend. We have heard from quite a few pilots who are flying in some great airplanes. Jim has been hard at work tidying up the hangars and getting everything together to make the fly in a great weekend. Remember there is a breakfast for all visitors at the high school across the street from the airport on Saturday morning and lots of things to see and do all day long.

We hope to see you up here, and it’s suppose to be a warm weekend, so plan accordingly.

Well we debated which airplanes to fly down to Arlington for the 41st annual Arlington Fly In for a few days. We knew the Piper Clipper and Ryan STA-Special were going and we had hoped to fly the F24 down, but the cylinders weren’t back from the shop yet. So in the end we flew the Waco INF down instead. And after taking the Ryan out of the hangar, it’s neighbor, the Mooney Mite, looked eager to go as well. It was a good choice, as the tiny Mite attracted a lot of attention.

We were lucky enough to park next to Addison Pemberton’s spectacular Boeing 40C. It is an amazing airplane and the workmanship is truly remarkable, a fun airplane to be parked next to for the show.

In the end it was an award winning place to be parked as well. The Clipper took Grand Champion in the classic category and the Boeing took Grand Champion in the antique category. It was quite an honor for the Clipper, a relatively simple airplane. But just about everybody who took a look at the PA-16 was in awe of the craftsmanship Jim and Drew put into the plane. Like our other Short Wing Pipers, it looks nicer than the day it came off the assembly line. It will be added to the aircraft section soon, and expect more photos to showcase the Clipper as well.

The Piper wasn’t our only award, the STA-Special took home a champion plaque in antique, and the last minute/visitor favorite Mooney Mite took home a workmanship award in the classic category. The Waco wasn’t judged as we are waiting until it goes through restoration hopefully in the next few years.

We’ve scanned in some more brochures from yesteryear. The 1961 Piper Colt shows a sticker price of $5995! They do a great break down of costs with fuel running 6gph and costing $.38/gallon!!

Also added another Mooney Mite brochure promoting the little plane as the perfect plane for the businessman pilot, sort of the same pitch the VLJs are using now. But with a 65hp engine, and a single seat, the Mite was a bit different of an experience.

Check both the Piper Colt and Mooney Mite pages in our aircraft section to see the new brochure scans.

We’re getting ready for the Arlington Fly In. We should have the Ryan, Piper Clipper and the Waco INF on display. And we should have a few more airplanes listed in our aircraft section soon, keep checking back!

Don’t forget about the Concrete Fly In coming up later this month.

One of our neighbors, Steve Bolan, has been making great progress outfitting his hangar. He and his son Preston are up in Concrete for much of the summer (they’re from San Diego). Steve recently installed his vintage gas pump which was rescued from an airport he used to fly out of in New Jersey, as well as an oil can rack and a vintage Coke machine that works!

You can also see their incredible 1958 Cessna 172 in the hangar. Preston learned to fly in the plane and it was restored a few years ago. The plane really looks great.

The Stinson has been stripped bare. With the exception of the tailwheel, every part, wire, piece of wood and bolt has been removed from the SR-9C’s frame. There are a few repairs that need to be made (see picture below of a broken piece of tubing where the step attaches to the frame), and once they are made, the frame will head down to Everett to get media blasted where they have a long enough room for the big Stinson.

Many of the parts are in great shape and will only need some cleaning and refinishing. Some of the wood work will have to be rebuilt as there was a fair amount of less than perfect wood on the plane. While we’re ending up doing a complete rebuild on the Stinson rather than the originally planned sand, paint and fly, in the end this plane is going to look really great and we will have a fully restored aircraft that we know will give us many years of great flying.

Now the debate is which should be finished first? Both the Waco and the Stinson have a lot of work ahead of them, and we want to see them both fly as soon as possible. Decisions, decisions….