St. Francis Fly in

If you give into your imagination and picture a small, quiet midwestern town where dogs ride grinning in the beds of pickup trucks, and a burger and a Coke at the local pool hall is a Saturday hour social event, then you've drawn a pretty good model picture of St. Francis, Kansas. Population 1,450, the locals point out that that fifty is important - St. Francis lies just north of Goodland in northwest Kansas. It's an area of the state where many locals joke that the grain silo and the town's skyscraper are one and the same. Once each June for the past twenty-one years, St. Francis takes on a different if no less nostalgic identity. It's the one weekend each year when vintage aircraft - and not just any vintage aircraft - play tag with the puffy white clouds that dot the summer sky. In St. Francis, the old planes are perfectly in character. In St. Francis, when you look up and see the old biplanes slowly pass overhead, it's hard not to think you're back in the 1940s. "Clear the prop area." [motor whirring]

[motor whirring] [motor whirring] "Clear the prop!" [motor winding down, sputtering] The vintage planes that flock to St. Francis each June are Stearmans chosen by the U.S. Navy in 1934 as it's primary trainer, the planes were built by the thousands in Wichita, Kansas. Also used by the Army Air Corp, the Stearman was named "The Yellow Peril" because of it's somewhat tricky ground handling characteristics, but mention the word "Stearman" to vintage aircraft enthusiasts, and their faces will soften, their eyes will get that faraway look as they imagine the throaty cough of it's big, rotary engine and the wind in their face as they fly amongst the clouds in the open cockpit. In 1982, aviation buffs - specifically,

Stearman biplane buffs - began flocking to St. Francis to celebrate the legendary World War Two trainer. The St. Francis Stearman fly-in was started almost by accident by Curtis Kimball, a surgeon from Sterling, Colorado who, along with his wife, was forced down in St. Francis in the summer of 1981 by bad weather. "And as we approached this side of Goodland, Kansas, there was this big bank of thunderstorms. And I said, 'Judy, we're not gonna try to fly through that bank of thunderstorms, we're gonna set this thing down and wait til' that goes by.' So we... I looked on the map and here was St. Francis, Kansas and I said, 'hey, we know some people from St. Francis, let's just fly over there and sit down there and wait.' When I flew over the airport, I looked down and I saw three beautiful grass runways so that you could land no matter which way the wind was blowing, you could always land into the wind, which is very important for a Stearman." Since its inception, the St. Francis fly-in has been a labor of love for Kimbell, and for the Grace family of St. Francis. First

by the late John Grace and his son, Robert, and recently by Robert and his brother, Richard, who took over the operation of the flying service after their father's death. "In about the 4th year I got the bright idea that I might start inviting skydivers and hot air balloonists and at that point [engine roar overhead] [engine roaring overhead] either by coincidence or because the combination of the three works in a... in a strange way, it started growing very rapidly and it became nearly impossible for him to organize the event from Sterling, Colorado where he lives and so we kind of inherited it." Among those attracted this year to St. Francis was Larry Bernard of Russell, Kansas. Bernard is a high school principal and owns a Piper Cherokee. [distant voices] "yeah, grab there and just swing your leg over" [woman laughing] "stand right on the seat" "[inaudible] my old Cherokee" "[laughs] just a little... a little easier to get into" "Yeah!" The idea for Bernard's ride in the Stearman came from his wife, Julie, who gave him the flight as Father's Day present. "He enjoys [inaudible] Stearmans, he's never gone for a ride. Was down here last year and saw it and so I

thought that'd be a nice Father's Day gift this year would be to give him a ride." So is this the first time he's ever been in a biplane? "Yes sir, it is." I guess he's kind of excited about it "Very excited, yeah. Talked about it all the way down." Fred Magley lives a few miles from St. Francis in Bird City. He took a few flying lessons many years ago and has been coming to the St. Francis fly-ins for a lot of years. Magley remembers when the Graces' Stearman was a working airplane. "They used these old big boys for spraying. They were workhorses and John Grace, the proprietor of the airport and now his two sons just kept their old Stearman 'cause at one time it didn't have very much trade-in value." In addition to the Stearmans and the more modern aircraft that bring Stearman buffs to the St. Francis fly-in, the event also attracts skydivers and hot air balloonists. Robert Grace is both. And as a balloon pilot, takes great pleasure in using lemonade instead of champagne to initiate first-time passengers into the fellowship of hot air ballooning. "Now, the reason that balloonists use champagne

genes for the initiation is, because the first balloon flights were in 1783, which was one hundred and twenty years before the Wright brothers flew airplanes and it was the montgolfier brothers that did them so three or four generations of people lived and died and the only way they knew how to fly was in balloons, but what happened was these guys didn't have propane, and so when they would land, the farmers would come out, their faces would get all sooty from the fire and they'd be black and looking nasty and the farmers would pitchfork the balloons thinking they were monsters so these guys got tired of sewing the balloons up so they said, 'let's start carrying wine along and after we have a successful balloon flight, we'll drink the wine to celebrate the flight and we will offer to the farmer whose land we're on and then they'll start... the word'll get around they'll start welcome us to land.' So for two hundred and thirty years now... two hundred and twenty years now successful balloon flights have been celebrated with champagne

because the montgolfier brothers flew in the champagne region of France. Now, you guys will kneel down and you have to wait until I say the balloonist's prayer and face the rising sun now remember you can't use your hands and you don't wanna start after I say the balloonist's prayer. All right, you ready? The winds have blessed you with softness, the sun has touched you with his warm hand, you have flown so high and so well that God has joined you in laughter and set you gently back in the loving arms of Mother Earth. All right, go ahead. Welcome to Ballooning." [laughter and shrieks] Each June, new, unsuspecting initiates into hot air ballooning have cold lemonade poured on their heads as they try to sip from cups placed before them on the ground. And each June, the Stearman fly-in swells the population of St. Francis significantly. And while it's an economic boon for the community, it's largely a time of fellowship for the small, northwest Kansas town. As families reunite,

and the old biplanes drift slowly overhead, working their magic as those unable to slip Earth's surly bonds squint into the sun and smile. Gordon Basher High Plains Public Radio News [airplanes flying overhead] [airplanes flying overhead and indistinct chatter]