FLIGHTS OF FANCY: PILOTS FLOCKED TO VINTAGE AIR FLY-IN AT GILLESPIE FIELD

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May 17, 2009 (El Cajon) – For Leslie Day and Heather Gamble, flying is all in the family.

“My father was a World War II pilot,” said Day, who know pilots a 1951 T-28 A Korean War trainer. (photo)

Gamble also inherited her love of flying from her father, though she only took up flying in recent years. When she did, she got an unexpected bonus. “My flight instructor became my husband,” said Gamble, now a member of San Diego 99, a chapter of the International Organization of Women Pilots that dates back to Amelia Earhart, the first female aviator. Today, she pilots a 1952 Cessna named “Dimples.”

Day and Gamble were among about 70 pilots who flew in to exhibit their vintage aircrafts at the first-ever vintage aircraft fly-in at Gillespie Field in El Cajon on May 16 and 17.

“There have been several thousand people here already,” Tom Weeks, president of the San Diego Chapter of the Antique Airplane Association, told East County Magazine on Saturday afternoon, the first day of the two-day event. The estimate was made by County Department of Public Works officials, he added.

Organizers hoped that the fly-in, held at a new parking ramp area adjacent to Gillespie Field, would help bolster the local economy. “They are trying to get people in here,” Gamble said. “Pilots can fly in and take the trolley to downtown.”

In addition to aircraft dating from the 1920s to the 1950s, the show also had classic cars and vintage farm equipment on display. Periodically, visitors thrilled to the sight of vintage planes taking wing for fly-overs above the crowd.

If you missed the fun, organizers hope to stage a repeat performance next year. But you won’t have to wait that long to view more vintage planes. Air Group One, the San Diego wing of the Commemorative Air Force, will host Wings Over Gillespie on June 6, 7 and 8—including reenactments of World War II and Viet Nam aerial battles complete with pyrotechnics. For details, see http://wingsovergillespie.org/welcome.htm.


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