Boogie out to Landmark Aviation via the main entrance to Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport from 7 a through 12 p Saturday & Sunday June 6 & 7 for some of the best pancakes, sausage and/or airplanes you have tasted and/or seen. The event is the annual Charlie Wells Aviation Scholarship Breakfast, sponsored by the Springfield Chapter Illinois Pilots Association IPASPI. This is THE major fundraiser for the schoarship named in honor of Charlie Wells, a local Illinois Division of Aeronautics aviation safety inspector and airshow pilot. It’s an all-you-can-eat event.
Several restored military aircraft will be on display for you to see up close: among them Liberty Belle Foundation’s Boeing B-17 G Flying Fortress. Rides, $430 per person, will be offered in this nicely restored classic warbird. The Ozark Airline Museum’s C-47 will be on static display, and there will be opportunities for rides in the ex-Israeli Air Force flying machine on SUNDAY. This is the same design that dropped thousands of brave paratrooper soldiers during the D-Day invasion of France which took place, coincidentally June 6, 1944. Greg Vallero’s North American AT-6F Texan in Illinois Air National Guard markings, possibly Clyde Zeller’s SNJ-5, and God only knows what else. An assortment of general aviation pilots are sure to fly in for breakfast, and their birds will decorate the tarmac as well. Rides in a Cessna 172 and a Cessna 210 will also be offered for sale, with proceeds to the Wells Scholarship Fund. Inside there will be educational displays including tables of 1/72 scale plastic model planes from the AeroKnow collection, Civil Air Patrol, Lincoln Land Community College’s School of Aviation, the Fly a World War II Veteran to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington DC organization and more.
I will also be talking with anyone with memories to share and photographs of Charlie Wells. I’ve volunteered to produce a biography of Charlie to sell at future IPASPI events. If you know the man or have pictures of him, his Pitts Special. or memories of him professionally or during air show performances, come talk to me. I’ll be with the model airplanes display along with my friend Kevin Panting who can tell you almost as much about AeroKnow as I can.
This will be great fun.
Live long . . . . . . and proper
