Aviation enthusiasts in the Clark County area will get to have an air show of their own this weekend. The Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport and Airpark will be the site for the first-ever Barnstorming Carnival in the area.
Pilots from all over the country will fly their vintage planes mostly from the 1920s and 1930s to Springfield. Dewey Davenport organized the event. He says Barnstorming refers to that era when pilots would go from town to town, usually landing on a farm and then offer rides to people for money.
"Back in those days people never even seen an airplane. So everyone would run out to the farm and they may take a ride for a dollar or five dollars and they would be able to say that they flew in an airplane. So, once the barnstormer pilot would finish exhausting his town, he would move to the next town, and he lived that way."
Davenport says Yellow Springs resident Jim Hammond helped him organize Springfield's first ever Barnstorming show.
"He's very much into history and vintage aircraft and really for the past 14 or 15 years a group of pilots with these antique airplanes would go to his place for a day."
Hammond and Davenport are modeling the Springfield Barnstorming Carnival after a similar one that happened 15 years ago in Winchester, Indiana. A documentary about that event was made and will be shown at Young's Dairy Saturday night.
Other activities at the Barnstorming Carnival in Springfield include, skydiving and model plane demonstrations and a rocket-building workshop. A pancake breakfast will kick things off starting at 8 a.m. Saturday.