Visitors can fly in or drive to a movie night Friday at Elkhart Municipal Airport.
Indiana Flight Center is hosting the first Fly-In Drive-In Movie Night at 6 p.m. Friday at the airport. The event features a showing of Disney movie “Planes,” which will be projected on the hangar doors.
The event has limited capacity since it’s the first of its kind at the Elkhart airport, said Brandon Herzog of Indiana Flight Center. They’re expecting at least 1,000 visitors already and have capacity for no more than 2,000.
Herzog said they’re hoping to expand the event in coming years.
“Next year we’ll be much better prepared for bigger groups,” he said.
While admission is free, the main fundraiser for the Fly-In Drive-In will be a paper airplane toss. Visitors can pay $5 to build an airplane and compete in the toss’ child or adult divisions. Adult grand prize winners will get a ride in a vintage biplane, while child grand prize winners will take an introductory flight with a trainer in a training plane.
“It’s as much a family fun night as it is to promote general aviation and to educate the community on what goes on out here that they can access,” Herzog said. “I’m not sure the community at large realizes there are lots of things at the airport that they can access and benefit from.”
That includes Indiana Flight Center programs such as flight training.
“We’re doing what we can to increase awareness of the aviation community in the area,” Herzog said.