Discover Aviation Days, set for this Saturday and Sunday at Minnesota’s Anoka County-Blaine Airport, is a great opportunity to see and learn about all kinds of aircraft. It will feature displays, fly-overs, informational booths and seminars, a pancake breakfast and lunch as well as a Saturday evening hangar dance.
General, corporate, experimental, home-built, World War II fighters, trainers and bombers along with vintage and modern military aircraft will be on display. Fly-overs will take place a couple of different times each day.
Event organizer Craig Schiller said his favorite part of Discover Aviation Days is seeing the crowd. “It doesn’t matter if it’s kids or adults,” he said. “It’s exciting for me to see new people learning about different aspects of aviation.”
The event runs from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day and admission is free, although Schiller said donations are welcome to help the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Discover Aviation Days fund this annual event.
New features to the popular two-day show will be at an educational tent on the south side of the airport that will include such vendors as University Avenue ACES Elementary School and the WCCO-TV mobile weather vehicle, according to Schiller. Veterans from different eras will also be on-hand to share their stories.
A separate tent on the north side of the airport will be for seminars, Schiller said. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety seminars will be taking place at 9 and 10 a.m. each day. Astronaut Curt Brown will speak from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Four other speakers are scheduled for the two afternoons.
An evening hangar dance with 1940s swing band music performed by the Dave Andrews Big Band will be held from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday night. Admission is $12 for adults and $8 for students. Kids 12 and under can go to the dance for free.
The “Miss Mitchell,” a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber that served in the 12th Air Force’s 57th Bomb Wing in North Africa and Italy will be on display and available for flight. It completed over 130 missions during the second world war and never had any fatalities. Rides are available and ticket prices range from $450 to $595; to purchase tickets, contact the group at info@DiscoverAviationDays.org or 763-568-6072.
Visitors must enter the airport from the 93rd Lane and Airport Road entrance on the south side.
For directions and more information, click here.
Photo by the Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing
