Flight breakfast swoops in Sunday

The Washington Pilots Association and the American Legion will hold their annual flight breakfast this Sunday from 7 to 11:30 a.m. at the Washington Municipal Airport. The two groups will serve pancakes, sausage, eggs, juice, milk and coffee.

The hangar that has traditionally housed the breakfast is being remodeled, but Tim Swift of the Washington Pilots Association said he hopes it will be ready for Sunday.

Steve Nebel owns a crop duster with a wingspan of 63 feet. The doors on the hangar south of the office only opened to 50 ½ feet, however. About three weeks ago, work began on the hangar to accommodate a wider opener. Swift said the new doors should be installed Thursday. Once it?s finished, the hangar can open to 69 feet wide.

Swift said that while the doors were being examined, people also found that a truss in the ceiling was rotten and had to be replaced. Swift said there is a backup plan to use a different building if the hangar isn?t ready by Sunday.

The pilots association has taken planes into town to promote the fly-in breakfast in the past. Swift said they plan to do that this year by taking three planes to the parking lot of Capper Auto. He said that, in prior years, the pilots took the planes all the way to the square. Swift said that is no longer possible because the planes cannot fit past the ?Historic Downtown? sign on East Washington.

The American Legion and the pilots association have put on the flight breakfast together for the past three years. Swift said the pilots association ran it by itself for 15 years, and the Jaycees ran it for about five years before that. Swift has helped with the flight breakfast since 1974, and he said it has been the first Sunday in June as long as he can remember.

Terry Philips is a member of the American Legion Post 29 and has helped with the flight breakfast. He said the Legion and the pilots association split the proceeds. Last year, the flight breakfast netted almost $1,000. Philips said the Legion got involved in the flight breakfast because it wanted to be more visible and to encourage more people to join. He said the money from the flight breakfast will go toward the Legion?s programs, such as taking gloves to people at the Veterans Hospital in Iowa City.