Our first fly-in of the year was on Saturday and unfortunately the weather was less than cooperative. It was IMC to the east over the Cascade mountains and it was overcast with some occasional rain during the day. There were some breaks in the weather and occasionally we could see down valley to the west.

Despite the less than ideal weather we did get a handful of airplanes fly in for a visit in addition to some of our locals here at 3W5.

In addition to those who flew in, we had a visitor all the way from France who was excited to see the museum airplanes and in particular the Call Air. In fact he contacted asking us specifically about the airplane.

The schedule was tight, he had to be back at Boeing Field by 3pm for work. A representative of the European Aviation Safety Association, our new friend has been in Seattle for the past several weeks as a flight test engineer on the new Boeing 787 certification flights.

After many hours riding in the cockpit of the 787, he was excited to get his hands on the control of the Call Air.

Okay, it wasn’t the first flight of our Bulldog, but we did get to see the logbook entry for the first flight of the real Bulldog when designer Robert Hall flew the racer on its “first test hop.” We recently enjoyed a special visit from Eric Hall, son of the legendary airplane designer Robert Hall. The younger Hall was passing through Seattle and stopped by Concrete to check on the progress of the Hall Springfield Bulldog we’re building.

In addition to visiting, he brought by some amazing pieces of history, including his father’s original logbooks. The logbooks are in remarkably good shape and show many first flights of historic airplanes including the GeeBee Model Z and of course the Hall Bulldog (above).

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With summer around the corner, we are busily preparing for fly-in season here in Concrete. In addition to the five fly-ins that will be happening here, we are also making plans to fly some of our airplanes to some of the other great fly-ins around the pacific northwest (and beyond).

Our big fly-in here in Concrete will be again held in late July. The newly renamed Concrete North Cascades Vintage Fly-In will be taking place July 22-24 with the main day being Saturday, the 23rd. We are expecting another fantastic fly-in and already have several interesting aircraft attending. Addison Pemberton’s Boeing Model 40 will be back, as will the Laird. Addison says as many as a dozen or so biplanes may be flying in from Felts Field.

The beautiful 1933 Stinson Model O that graced Arlington and Oshkosh in 2010 will be here this year.  And we’re hoping to have a Douglas DC-3 make the trip.

In addition to the big fly-in, we are planning several smaller ones that will be low-key get togethers for anybody who wants to enjoy a nice day in the north cascades. The first of these will be Saturday, May 21st. We’re calling it our “Taildragger Pancake Breakfast” and we encourage anybody with a tail dragger or anybody who likes tail draggers to come by for breakfast.

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