Almost OSH Gathering at Northeast Iowa Regional Airport

By Mark Nankivil

When returning to St. Louis from a family trip to Minnesota last Friday, we stopped in Mason City, IA for gas and a pit stop. As we were finishing up fueling, along comes a foursome of T-6s/SNJs and a T-34 in trail flying over and making a pass over town. They came back and made the break over the airport about a half mile away, so we headed over there. It turned out that a group planning to go to Oshkosh (of course now cancelled) decided they would get together anyway. 

The FBO kindly allowed us onto the apron where we found a Beaver on floats and a P-51D (N151BW 44-74813) Cripes A’Mighty. Further down in front of the private hangars we found scads of AT-6s and SNJs, and another P-51D (N1751D 44-63675) Sierra Sue II. We also saw a pair of orange O-1s, the T-34, a nice Maule and Cessna 195. A big thank you to Dawn Gourley with Northeast Iowa Regional Airport for the opportunity to take these photos.