Being steps away from the runway at the Kelowna International Airport is as rare as a rainy day in the Okanagan, but both happened during the inaugural Wings and Wheels Show, which features rows of classic and imported cars, motorcycles and planes.
“You can get up close and personal with the airplane, with the pilots of the airplane, talk to them, talk to the people with the cars,” said Kent Hardisty, president of the Kelowna Flying Club.
“[Being] Also on the airside, people like to come to the airport and watch the planes take off and land.”
The Kelowna T-hangars at YLW were buzzing with hundreds of people, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectacle designed to help the next generation dream of an aviation career.
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“I was that little kid sitting in the back of the car looking at the planes and I said, ‘One day I hope I can fly,’ and as soon as I joined the military they immediately said, what do you want to do? said, ‘I want to fly,’ so I became a pilot after that and have been flying ever since,” said Ariel Tyk, organizer of Wings and Wheels.
“Now when I look at the little children walking by and look at them, I see myself.”
Tyk will be displaying its Super Petrel seaplane at the event, which shows how far technology has come since the first successful powered aircraft was flown by the Wright brothers in 1903, more than 100 years ago. Sixteen years after that first flight, Andrew Kiesewetter’s 1919 Ford Model T Runabout was built, which he has cared for for three years and driven to the Wings and Wheels show.
“By modern standards she is terribly unsafe, completely crazy to drive because the breaks are unreliable, but incredibly hilarious to drive. It’s such a fun thing to drive,” said Kiesewetter, a member of the Okanagan Chapter of the Vintage Car Club of Canada.
Although the rain kept some people from bringing their cars to the event to show off, there were so many planes, cars and motorcycles on display that the show was spread over two locations. After visitors finished wandering the lines at the T-hangar, they were invited to KF Aerospace to view the larger aircraft that were being restored.
One of the aircraft on display is the De Havilland Mosquito, a bomber that was one of the fastest aircraft in World War II. KF Aerospace says there are only 30 left in the world and only four of them are still considered airworthy, including the one being repaired in Kelowna.
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