Last year, Darrell Inkster organized an event in collaboration with the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum in Brandon, which saw several of their old WWII era trainers spend the day in the City of Sunshine.
This year, they'll be back again, and Inkster expects the event to be an even bigger hit than last year: they're bringing a new plane.
"I've been in touch with the Brandon Museum for quite a few years and got this idea last year to do this, and we went ahead full bore, and it was very successful, we had a lot of people show up, no complaints, everything went pretty good other than the weather," said Inkster.
The Museum has acquired a Boeing-Stearman Model 75, called the Kaydet. It's an open-cockpit biplane, that had more than 10,000 units produced to train allied WWII pilots. The Kaydet will make an appearance at this year's event, along with iconic trainers and planes from last year, including the famous North American Harvard.
"They're second world war era, they're trainers, some of which were stationed here at Dauphin when the Commonwealth Training Airport was going here...[the Harvard is] the main attraction, I went up in it myself last year, and yeah, that big girl is going to be here for sure," said Inkster.
Working with the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum on the event has been a breeze for Inkster. He said all he's had to do is let people know the event will be taking place.
"They've got it all planned out pretty good at their end, I just have to give them a place to land, and look after getting people in, and feed everybody, and it's just like a big picnic sort of thing, that's what we're looking to do again," said Inkster.
After last year's event, Inkster donated just north of $800 to Dauphin's Air Cadet Squadron, the 50 LCol Barker VC Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron. They'll be helping out again with the event this year, and Inkster plans to donate any profits to the Squadron again. The event is set for August 23rd.
