For five years, members of the community enjoyed a day at a place few visit on a regular basis: The Franklin Municipal Airport.

Community Day

was a daylong event for visitors that included food, rides, informational booths, plane and helicopter rides, car shows, the chance to inspect and touch old planes, and the opportunity to tour everything from fire trucks to emergency vehicles, to traffic helicopters, to military helicopters.

There were formation flyovers, sky-divers demonstrations and a day to walk around the hangars and (hopefully)

enjoy nice weather.

Held the third Saturday in May, it became a popular destination point. Last year, in a “down” year, about 1,800 people turned out to participate.

But having that many people at an event can be taxing on volunteers and vendors, and the events is, regrettably, being scaled back to be held every other year.

Airport Manager Jimmy Gray said, “I need some pretty specialized volunteers and I have a limited number of them. I don’t want to burn them out.”

“It was a lot harder getting participation with aircraft,” Gray said. “I think that the high cost of aviation fuel had something to do with it.”

And so it was decided, sadly but understandably, to limit the frequency of the event.

We look forward to spending a Saturday in May 2009 at the airport.