FLAPJACKS ON THE RUNWAY: HONORING A PIONEER AVIATOR WITH BREAKFAST, MUSIC AND LOTS OF COOL PLANES

A Press-Ready Travel Feature
From the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau

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Michael A. Norton
Media Relations
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Cutline: Visitors check out an amphibious plane at the annual Fly-In Breakfast at Woolsey Memorial Airport near the Michigan coastal town of Northport. Now in its 20th year, the Saturday morning event – part reunion, part airshow and part vintage auto rally – draws hundred of attendees to this former dairy farm near the tip of Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. This year’s Fly-In will be held Aug. 16.

(Other high-resolution photos available on request.)

By MIKE NORTON

NORTHPORT, MI – With its grass runways, splendid Lake Michigan views and quaint fieldstone terminal, Woolsey Memorial Airport might strike the casual observer as more cute than impressive.

But each summer, hundreds of people gather at this isolated airfield at the tip of Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula on a Saturday morning in August to share an enormous breakfast in honor of its namesake, an almost-forgotten aviation pioneer named Clinton Woolsey. They include fliers from all over the Midwest, from private pilots to Coast Guard helicopter crews, as well as carloads of other visitors who swarm to the airport from the nearby towns of Northport, Suttons Bay, Leland and Traverse City.

Part reunion, part airshow and part vintage car rally, the Woolsey Memorial Fly-In attracts a wide variety of attendees. (Some years, the crowd exceeds 1,700.) Some go for the chance to see rare private aircraft and historic automobiles, while others enjoy the small-town camaraderie that’s served out with each plate of flapjacks and sausage.

“People fly up from Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, and a few fly across the lake from Wisconsin,” said organizer John Sparling. “It seems to get bigger every year.”

Such hubbub might seem out of place for a tiny cow-pasture airport, but Woolsey Airport is accustomed to important visitors. When the field was first opened in 1935, almost every great American aviator of the time - Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, Billy Mitchell - attended the ceremony to show respect for the young pilot whose name it bears.

Clint Woolsey grew up here in the early years of the 20th century and joined the Army Air Corps, where he rose to the rank of Captain. In 1926 he was one of 10 pilots chosen to participate in a pioneering goodwill flight to 23 Central and South American countries—a trip of 22,000 miles across oceans and uncharted jungles and over the highest mountains in the hemisphere, without radios and only the most basic flight instruments.

Near Buenos Aires, his plane collided with another member of the squadron; although Woolsey could have parachuted to safety, he stayed aboard the aircraft in an attempt to rescue his co-pilot, who had become separated from his parachute. Heartbroken, his parents turned their dairy farm into an airfield; the fieldstone dairy building became the airport terminal and observation tower.

With its 3,600-foot runway and its lack of navigational or refueling facilities, Woolsey Memorial (sometimes jokingly referred to as “Woolsey International”) is classified as a Class D airport by the Federal Aviation Administration. But its location between the village of Northport and Leelanau State Park, its historical associations and its role in serving a sometimes isolated community have made it dear to the hearts of local residents and vacationers, and it has long been a favorite stop for private pilots cruising the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Twenty years ago, local pilots decided to hold an annual summer rally to raise funds for the airport’s continuing repair and upkeep. The idea was an instant hit, thanks to help from military aircrews, amateur pilot groups, local musicians and antique auto owners, all of whom contributed their talents to the effort. Visitors quickly learned that they got a lot more than a heaping plate of pancakes, eggs and sausage for their $6 contribution – they got the chance to peer into dozens of rare planes and cars, watch demonstrations by Coast Guard and other official aircraft, listen to a live concert by the Northport Community Band and engage in the kind of spontaneous conversation that occurs when total strangers share picnic-table space on an airport runway.

And all the while, aircraft are arriving and departing: sleek helicopters, delicate biplanes, sporty little Cessnas, Pipers and Beeches and candy-colored experimental planes – all buzzing through the sky like mosquitoes at a weenie roast.

The 2008 Fly-In Breakfast will be held Aug. 16 from 8 a.m. to noon; admission is $6 for adults and $3 for children. Woolsey Memorial Airport is located on County Road 629, four miles north of Northport (30 miles north of Traverse City).

Since the event is over by noon, a visit to the airport can easily be combined with a trip to the nearby Leelanau State Park with its beaches, hiking trails and 19th century lighthouse museum, or the magnificent Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which is about 20 minutes away. The quaint village of Northport, meanwhile, has more than enough galleries, shops and restaurants to keep shoppers occupied.

For information about other events and activities in the Traverse City area this year, as well as a comprehensive listing of area restaurants, accommodations and attractions, contact the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau at 1-800-TRAVERSE or on line at www.VisitTraverseCity.com