Gathering of the Giants coming to the Cape
The annual Cape Coral R/Sea Hawks Air Show, Gathering of the Giants, will be held Saturday, March 20, and Sunday, March 21, in Cape Coral from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. each day.
R/Sea Hawks President Ed Gamils said the air show has been held for the past 15 years.
“It’s a nice weekend,” he said about the annual event. “We do it once a year and its primarily to entertain the citizens of Cape Coral.”
He said about 4,500 people will attend the event, which he explained is “a yearly thing we do for the city of Cape Coral and for the club. It’s a big deal for guys to come in from all over the place.”
The annual event is a fund-raiser for the club, Cape Coral R/Sea Hawks Secretary Dick Maltby said. It is also held for the enjoyment of the pilots and the spectators, he added.
Maltby said they are expecting more than 50 pilots this year for the Gathering of the Giants.
Scale models of turbine jets, a mixture of World War II aircrafts, civilian and classic aircrafts from the ’30s will all be present at the show, Gamils said, which is a good mixture of giant scale aircrafts that have a greater wing span of 80 inches.
Gamils said the big attraction this year is the B-29 bomber, which is coming down from Georgia. Gen. Mac Hodges will launch a X-1 rocket ship from the World War II aircraft rendition, he explained.
“Gen. Mac Hodges puts on quite a show,” Gamils said.
It will be flying for everyone’s enjoyment on Saturday and Sunday, Maltby said.
A candy bomber will also be at the show dropping candy on the runway for the kids to collect around noon on Saturday and Sunday.
Gamils said he will personally be flying the candy bomber that the kids enjoy so much.
There will be hamburgers, hot dogs, barbeque ribs and an ice cream truck on site during the air show, which is all reasonably priced, Gamils said.
“We are raffling off a radio control model airplane, which includes everything you need,” Gamils said. He added that they will also provide lessons for those who do not know how to fly the radio controlled aircraft, which has a 78-80 inch wing span. Raffle tickets are $5.
“It’s the next big thing to a full scale airplane show,” he said about the Gathering of the Giants event.
Those who attend will be asked to make a $5 donation per car to enter the air park.
Gamils said the best way to get to the Cape Coral Sea Hawks Air Park is to take I-75 and get off at the Tuckers Grade exit and come across Burnt Store Road and then look for signs that say Sea Hawks airport. The air park is located at 1030 NW. 28th Street.
For information, visit www.rseahawks.org.