Antique aircraft tour landing at Shoshone County Airport

SMELTERVILLE — Plane enthusiasts are encouraged to attend an antique aircraft event at the Shoshone County Airport as part of an air tour stop Tuesday.

Flyers and coordinators for the Puget Sound Antique Airplane Club air tour will be stopping in Sandpoint on July 10 before heading to Smelterville for a lunch visit from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. About 40 planes will be available for the public to view at the county airport.

There are about 90 people and about 50 aircraft in total participating in PSAAC’s regional air tour, which begins Saturday. The five-day tour will host stops in Twisp, Wash., Colville, Wash., Sandpoint, Smelterville, Priest River and Spokane before the group heads back to the Seattle area to wrap up.

Leo Dondlinger is coordinating the lunch stop in Smelterville and said that the aircraft club makes regional air tours every other year.

“We put on an air tour and go from city to city like the old barnstormers used to. We put the planes on display and may give a ride or two and sometimes folks will put on a barbecue for us,” Dondlinger said.

Barnstorming took its name from the aerobatic pilots who would fly from town to town and use local barns as staging areas for air shows, and the barnstorming era of the 1920 and 1930s was boosted by the number of pilots after WWI.

Today, air tours like this are great ways for antique airplane clubs to invigorate an interest in aviation and connect with other communities in the region who share that passion. Aircraft from the 1930s and 1940s that will be flying in the tour include planes from Stearman and Naval Aircraft Factory N3N biplanes to Piper Cubs and Cessnas, as well as some homebuilt aircraft.

Dondlinger said that anyone interested in antique planes is welcome to stop by and speak to the pilots. Aspiring aviation aficionados can learn the differences between nosewheel planes versus “taildraggers” (tailwheel aircraft) as well as details about featured antique planes. All comers are welcome.

“We’ll be parked on the tarmac on July 11,” Dondlinger said.

If you go

What: aircraft air tour lunch stop

When: approximately 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, July 11

Where: Shoshone County Airport, 926 Airport Road, Smelterville

Info: Puget Sound Antique Airplane Club at www.psaac.org/index.php.