SIMSBURY - This year’s annual Fly-In, car show, and food truck festival at the Simsbury Airport featured more than 750 planes and automobiles. Every person who attended helped raise money to keep the Simsbury airport running.
"There’s something for everyone and you get up close and personal with the cars and the planes. If it’s fast If it’s food If it’s fun it’s here," says Brad Griswold, the general manager of the airport.
From family fun events like robotics demonstrations, to planes flying, classic cars, and lots of food...the festival never disappoints.
"[It's] pretty cool because I just saw a red [airplane] and I see an orange one over there," says four year old Jacob Smith from Farmington. "Pretty exciting."
What better way to experience a fly-in show than to sit in the cockpit and take a look at what it would be like if you were actually flying in the air. There are tons of different, unique planes. Some of them are even homemade.
"When I was a kid, my father and I would do control line airplanes in the backyard and then on to radio control when I was in high school," says Russell Beers, a pilot from Manchester who built his own plane. "Building those kinds of kit aircraft, it's kind of like the bigger, much bigger, version of that."
The Experimental Aircraft Association in Simsbury works all year to put on this festival, so they can continue to accommodate pilots looking for a place to land.
"We're all volunteers. We don't get any money from the state or the feds or the town and this is how we raise the money to keep the airport going," says Bill Thomas, the festival's organizer.
The festival is free to the public, but you can leave a donation at the door. The $10 parking fees benefited the local Boy Scouts chapter.
This year was the first year 20 food truck vendors were involved with the festival.