Nearly 2,400 people attended the first annual Back to Bartlesville Regional Fly-In held on Sept. 22-23 at the City-owned Bartlesville Municipal Airport.
The event featured fly-over formations, more than 50 aircraft on display, exhibit hangars, a WWII veterans honor ceremony and more.
Rain showers on the morning of Sept. 22 significantly impacted the kickoff of the event, according to Airport Director Mike Richardson, who also noted that winds on Sept. 23 later caused the cancellation of the highly anticipated parachute jump by the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team Foundation.
However, the rain eventually cleared and a small trickle of cars made their way to the fly-in on Sept. 22 – approximately 100 car-loads were counted, Richardson said.
The next day, it was a deluge of crowds and even more airplanes.
“Saturday was phenomenal,” Richardson said. “We had about 634 cars on Saturday. Overall, we had about 2,300 visitors plus the pilots that flew in, so nearly 2,400 total.”
Richardson said he hopes to bring the event back to Bartlesville for years to come.
“A lot of people enjoyed seeing the fly-in back in Bartlesville,” said Richardson. “They had nothing but good things to say about the start of the new fly-in in Bartlesville. We’d just like to thank everybody for turning out to make the first annual Back to Bartlesville Regional Fly-In a success. It takes the public’s support to keep this going, and we owe a lot of thanks to a lot of folks. We look forward to making next year bigger and better.”