by Elaine Walker
This group of aspiring young aviators didn’t know each other before they climbed into an airplane and became ‘crew mates’ during the Fly In Saturday at the Anacortes Airport. From left to right are Martin Bernal, 10, of Mount Vernon, and Joshua Johnson, 8, Knute Fosso, 9, and Knute’s mom Kori Fosso, all of Anacortes. More photos are posted in the Goskagit.com photo gallery section.
If anything the weather was a little too good for the Fly In at the Anacortes Airport on Saturday — the visiting pilots didn’t want to hang around very long.
“They just wanted to get back up in the air,” said John Hachey, director of operations for the Port of Anacortes.
The event, which alternates annually with the fly in at the Skagit Regional Airport, attracted 54 planes and helicopters from all over the region. Some of the highlights included a zebra-striped experimental Sonex owned by Paul O’Donnell of Bellingham; a group of three helicopters from the Skagit airport, whose owners came for lunch; a Cesna caravan; and a turbo prop Pilatus owned by a 38-year-old computer guy whose first program sold for $30 million, Hachey said.
It was hard to estimate crowd size, with visitors and stretched along the full length of the airport, but the number was certainly in the hundreds, including a constant crowd gathered throughout the day around a Naval Air Station Whidbey Island search and rescue helicopter.
Other popular sights were Bill Wooding’s MIG and tank, and radio controlled model planes brought in by a club. Hachey said a pilot-sponsored raffle brought in $800 for the Boys and Girls Club.
“It was incident free. It was just a beautiful day,” Hachey said.
Helping to make the day trouble free were young volunteers from the Civil Air Patrol, who directed ground traffic of mixed aircraft and pedestrians. Also assisting was J.J. Jackson, an unofficial tower volunteer who coordinated takeoffs and landings, Hachey said.
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