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CONTACT SCBJ John Wolcott, Editor jwolcott@scbj.com Dave Clark, Assistant Editor dclark@scbj.com

Record crowd at Paine Field’s General Aviation Day as FHC Celebrates First Year Anniversary

By John Wolcott

SCBJ Editor



Attracted by an air show, aircraft exhibits, food booths, sunny weather and a new location closer to the Flying Heritage Collection, Paine Field’s 2009 Fourteenth Annual General Aviation Appreciation Day set new attendance records on May 16.

This year’s venue was moved from the traditional location on the parking ramp outside the airport offices and near the FAA control tower, to larger ramp space outside Paul Allen’s FHC air museum apparently made a dramatic difference.

A record crowd of more than 4,500 people visited during the event, nearly double the 2008 attendance of 2,500. Parking lots were filled up to five blocks away, with people streaming through the gate all day long.

It was also a time to talk about attendance records set by the Flying Heritage Collection, which celebrates its first year at Paine Field June 6 with a tally of more than 25,000 visitors to see perhaps the world’s most precisely restored array of flying World War II military aircraft from the five major countries in that global engagement.

“Originally,” said Adrian Hunt, the collection’s executive director, “we had goals, hoped for goals, of 11,000 visitors during our first year here. We’ve more than doubled that goal. We’re very pleased with the response.”

In an interview during the General Aviation Day event, Hunt said not only were the attendance numbers excellent, “that also means we made more than twice as much money as we had hoped, which is very important for the Friends of the Flying Heritage, the nonprofit group that runs the FHC exhibit, showing off the rare historic planes that are on loan from Paul Allen’s collection.”

The whole purpose of the museum, he said, is to share Allen’s private collection, accumulated over many years from around the world and restored with millions of dollars in restoration work. People have come from numerous states as well as many foreign countries, he said.

“We’ve also had 7,500 people come to our ‘Fly Days’ in the past year,” Hunt said, referring to the summer and fall weekends when the public can attend a free viewing of various exhibit planes revving up their engines and flying over the airfield. “This is perhaps the world’s greatest collection of flying models of these planes of great historical and technological significance in world history as well as aviation history. It’s like getting to see the crown jewels or the Hope diamond.”

Within the next year, three to four new planes may join the 15 on display, he said, but no one knows for sure which ones they may be at this time.

“There are many FHC planes in the collection being restored now and, because each plane involves such a detailed and precise process of finding parts and restoring working engines, it’s a very long process, with a number of aircraft in various stages of restoration at any particular time,” he said. “Depending how things go we might even have one to two more by the end of the year.

Even in the seemingly full display space in the restored aircraft hangar at Paine Field, there is still room to add a few more, he said, noting that the protective dividers that separate the planes can easily be moved, just as they are when planes are selected for their “exercise flights” regularly.

“Fly Day” schedules are posted on the FHC Web site, he said, at www.flyingheritage.com.

Airport Manager Dave Waggoner called the aviation day “a tremendous success by every measure,” noting that “moving the event from the terminal area to the south ramp was a WIN-WIN-WIN for the event, the participants and the public.”

He credited a lot of hard work and participation from many groups for the success of the day.

“This type of event could not happen without all the hard work and generosity of the GA Day Team, the WPA event organizers, airport staff, Young Eagle pilots, FAA Air Traffic Controllers, Cascade Warbirds, Historic Flight, Flying Heritage Collection, Mukilteo Chamber, Mukilteo Kiwanis, Everett Community College, Civil Air Patrol, and all the other volunteers … I understand the number of Young Eagles flown that day reached 200 and still increasing around 2:30 p.m.”

The day’s events included a Paine Field Fire Fighter Pancake Breakfast to raise donations for the Northwest Burn Foundation, and the Mukilteo Chamber’s Taste of Mukilteo fund raising event for their scholarship fund, featuring area restaurants

Also, several hundred young people from 8 to 17 were provided with free flights in a variety of aircraft flown by members of the Paine Field Chapter of the Washington Pilot’s Association, which sponsors the Young Eagles event.

Coinciding with Armed Forces Day, the free event featured not only dozens of civilian aircraft on display but also vintage military aircraft from the Cascade Warbirds, Flying Heritage Collection and the Historic Aircraft Foundation.

Joining the flight of two FHC aircraft, a P-51 North American Mustang and a P-47 Republic Thunderbolt were two P-51s from John Sessions’ Historic Aircraft Foundation. Following their low field passes over the runway and formation flying exhibitions, the crowds also enjoyed seeing the Arlington Airport-based Black Jack Squadron, flying more than a dozen planes in formation, the nation’s largest group of civilian formation fliers.

A surprise event at the aviation day the taxiing and take-off of a Boeng 747-400, still in its test-flight green, without any painted livery for the airline that ordered it. The plane rolled by close to the crowds, drawing much attention.

Information booths and displays were set up for various groups, including Angel Flight West, Civil Air Patrol, Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival and others, as well as various flight schools.

Everett Community College’s Aviation School at Paine Field also displayed a business jetliner its students use as a learning tool in their classes, and distributed information about aviation classes at Paine Field that include aviation maintenance technician training, including learning new composite aviation technology.