Olympic Air Show 2026 Recap

The Olympic Flight Museum in Olympia has been having this Father’s Day weekend event since 1999. I would guess that it is one of the longest continually running air shows in Washington State. I was fortunate this year to have my 1944 Piper L-4H written up in their 21-page program sitting in as part of our Commemorative Air Force Rainier Squadron (based at Arlington). Our Stinson Reliant AT-19 is down this summer for an engine overhaul. They treat us like kings there as part of the air show with ground transportation, hotel, lunch, Saturday evening party and even complimentary beer garden vouchers!

For those of you unfamiliar with 43-30430, she was built in April of 1944 in Lock Haven, PA, shipped to England and was initially part of the 9th Air Force. In the Fall she was transferred to Army Ground Forces in France as part of the Ninth Army, 30th Infantry Division. In December 1944 the 30th ID was northwest of Bastogne near the town of Malmedy, Belgium when the German offensive began. She survived the Battle of the Bulge and continued with the 30th ID crossing the Rhine River into Germany through war’s end.

Flying there and back in the Class C airspace, although legal with no electrical system, makes me a bit nervous in a stealthy camouflaged aircraft. ADS-B in on my iPad helps. I added a second handheld Icom radio clipped to the display B-8 parachute in the front seat to be able to better communicate with the tower. The handheld mounted in the wing root is difficult to see and hard to change frequencies on. My Grasshopper was a static display parked in front of the local WWII U.S. Living History Group “Friends of Willie and Joe” originally sponsored by WWII veteran/cartoonist Bill Mauldin. This group was camped at KCLM three years ago for the Port Angeles Airport D a y. Their Olympic encampment and my L-4H were right across from the PBY, B-17, P-40 and TBM Avenger. Perfect seating to watch the air show and show folks how things must have looked 82 years ago when the L-4 aircraft were supporting Army artillery units. -Also present and flying in the air show was Bill Shepherd with his Yak-3 and members of our Seattle EAA Cascade Warbirds Squadron. As a side note, the P-40 that attended, owned by the “Soaring by the Sea Foundation” in Oregon is the only P-40 in the world with six fully operational .50 caliber machine guns. You can bring it up on YouTube. As a plus, I gave myself an early birthday gift – a flight in the Erickson Collection (Madras, OR) TBM Avenger torpedo bomber. That is one big airplane!! Unfortunately, the field does not welcome transient aircraft for parking on the ramp area certain hours, Friday through Sunday airshow weekend.

However, it’s about a 2.5 hr. drive from Sequim down scenic Hwy 101 and it would make a very worthwhile drive-out event in the future.