By Steve Smith
It’s a familiar sight, once a year in the skies above the city. Kicking off the Trapper’s Day parade, vintage aircraft from the Lafayette Foundation will again fly down Denver Avenue, north to south, beginning at 10 a.m. Sept. 10.
Five aircraft are slated for the fly over, something that Vintage Aero Flying Museum President and Executive Director Andy Parks said is weather dependent, as current conditions dictate exactly what will fly out of the museum’s collection of WWI, classic antique and experimental aircraft.
“What mix of that, I can’t tell you,” Parks said. “But we fly at every chance we get, weather permitting.”
Foundation aircraft fly in several celebrations in and around the Front Range throughout the fair weather months, with the majority of events in the fall when cool temperatures and lesser winds prevail.
A third generation collector, Parks has been in the business of history for 48 years, with his family involved for at least twice that. My family has been doing it for almost a hundred (years) Parks said. “My grandfather was in WWI, my dad collected the majority of the WWI uniforms, he built the Fokker D VII, then I built the rest of the planes and the WWII collection and the buildings.”
The Foundation, named in honor of the men who served in the LaFayette Escadrille and the LaFayette Flying Corps during WWI, recalls those flyers and many more from around the world through the two World Wars. At the final reunion of the Lafayette Flying Corps, organized by Andy Parks’ father Dr. James J. Parks in 1983, the surviving members of the LaFayette Flying Corps, asked Jim and Andy, to “carry on the Corps” after they were gone, passing the charter onto the Parks family.
The museum itself will be open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with Parks giving tours throughout the day. Cost per person is $5, a bargain for history and aviation buffs anxious to see a collection referenced (and coveted) by such luminary as the Smithsonian Institution.
Contact Gene Sears at 303-659-2522, ext. 217 or gsears@metrowestnewspapers.com
