Out of thin air
At 10 years old, Dustin Coffey may seem a bit young to be interested in World War II airplanes.
“It was an accident,” he said, explaining how he got hooked on Spitfires, B-25 Mitchells and P-40 Warhawks. A couple of years ago, his older brother, Deven, brought home a movie from the library about the planes.
“I saw how cool they were. I started checking out all these books and started getting interested,” Dustin said while standing in line to tour a more modern military plane, the Navy’s antisubmarine P-3 Orion.
The Spokane Valley fifth-grader was one of more than 15,000 people who attended the first Thunder Over the Prairie Airshow at the Coeur d’Alene Airport on Saturday. The show continues today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Gates will open at 8 a.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for children. Parking is $3 per vehicle.
A fund-raiser for the Hayden Chamber of Commerce, the show features 160 aircraft. Skydivers, aerobatic demonstrations, precision flying teams and military fly-bys are the thunder in the sky. On the ground, spectators can inspect antique planes, commercial cargo craft and home-built experimental models.
Maynard and Patty Ingalls flew their bright orange Starduster II biplane 800 miles from Dayton, Nevada, to Coeur d’Alene to show it off. The couple met at an Experimental Aircraft Association meeting in 1977.
It wasn’t love at first sight. It was the planes.
“I found out he wanted to build a biplane, and that’s what I wanted to do, too,” Patty Ingalls said. They got together, got married and now fly to shows all summer long.
On Saturday, the crowd munched hamburgers and pizza while craning necks to see Canada’s Fraser Blues flying team. Pilots in 50-year-old Navions soared overhead in close formation while Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” boomed over the public address system.
California’s Just in Time skydivers performed next. One of the divers unfurled an American flag as an earthbound trio sang the national anthem.
Just five weeks ago, show organizers secured a permit to use the airport from the Kootenai County Commission. Commissioners required a $15 million liability insurance policy, which organizers said was too high, but finally agreed to purchase.
“Many people said we’d never pull it off,” said show executive director Randy Giddings. “This is the payoff, seeing all these people.”