By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Airport manager Pieter Miller is excited to show off the airport this weekend.
"Most of the display aircraft, the large aircraft, the aerial display aircraft, the folks that are going to set up their static displays, most of them are all coming in on Friday afternoon and Friday evening," Miller said. "The folks that are actually flying in to just see what's going on, they'll probably start arriving around eight or nine o clock Saturday morning."
There appears to have been some pent up demand after a lot of similar events were canceled last year due to the pandemic.
"We've got some aircraft that we've never had here before," Miller said. "Our showpiece, one of the planes that I'm the most excited about, it's a 1943 C-47 Spooky gunship. It's basically a DC-3 that was used during the Normandy invasions. He'll be here from Topeka. We're going to have a C-2A Trader, which is an aircraft carrier based cargo plane. We have T-33 fighter jets. We're going to have water bomber aerial displays, fly-bys, plenty of aircraft available for rides and also free rides for kids through the Young Eagles program."
Those rides are for kids ages 8 to 17 all day Saturday.
"If we can encourage and spark interest in even one or two kids with this event, it comes back," Miller said. "They'll fly into the airport in the future. They'll own airplanes, they'll buy services. They'll come back to Hutch. They'll visit the airport, that's operations. Really, all it takes is one or two kids to move into aviation for this, for events like this to benefit everybody."
The air show and open house will run from 8 a.m. until around 3 p.m. For more information, go to prairieskiesairshow.com.