Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, Fullerton Airport has been home to Antique Aircraft Display Days, a volunteer-run event held on the second Sunday of every month. Pilots and aviation enthusiasts from all across Southern California bring their antique planes to the Fullerton airfield for families and residents to see. Members of the Civil Air Patrol, who wear bright orange vests, volunteer their time at each event to direct incoming aircraft. In other words, the volunteers ensure that the classic planes arrive safely, pulling them into a coned area just north of the air tower so that they can be prominently displayed.

I recently had the opportunity to attend Fullerton Airport’s November 9 event, which took place on a foggy morning. I also had the chance to briefly interview Dennis Newbury, an active volunteer since 2009, who organizes the monthly event.

“It started before my time, let’s put it that way. It’s probably been the early 2000s or the 1990s since it’s been going,” recalled Newbury as he sat at a table underneath the airport’s air control tower with communications devices positioned nearby, so that he could talk with other volunteers from the Civil Air Patrol and help maintain the safety of everyone visiting.

“It’s been called Antique Aircraft Display Day or Classic Aircraft Display Day,” said Newbury. “What we do is we open up the airport here inside this coned area to let the public see aircraft that are 30 years and older. With that, the pilots get what we call a ‘sign-off’ for displaying their airplane on this day. It’s here for the public, to help get them interested in aviation, the younger generation as well as the older generation…and they can walk up, see the planes and talk to the pilots, and that’s pretty much the whole reason why we do this event. It’s open and free to the public. There’s no charge to enter the airport and view the planes.”

Located in what the City of Fullerton on its website calls the “Transient” parking area inside the airport, just north of the terminal building and control tower, this event takes place in a space wide enough to fit many antique planes, and it is surrounded by orange cones. Signs posted at the entrance gate in the chainlink fence read, “Attention visitors, please stay inside the cones.”

I arrived at the airport around the start of the event at 10:00 am and was able to watch as some of the planes were brought into the display area. The reflective surfaces attached to the volunteers, as well as the color of their bright orange vests, made it easier for the pilots navigating into the event space to see them as they landed on the foggy morning. Around noon, I counted eighteen planes on display and saw a lot of different families coming out to the airfield to watch the planes fly in.

When asked how many people generally attend the event, Newbury explained that they don’t have anyone who actually counts, but he says that on a good day, when they have a lot of planes, they get a couple of hundred people.

He said, “Today is an overcast day. As you saw, there’s lots of clouds and lots of fog, so there’s not a lot of people flying in right now and not a lot of people coming out to see all the planes. But when the planes do come in, we get 200 to 300 people who come in and out of here on average; sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.”

I ran into Jere Greene, a photographer and colleague here at the Observer, while I was at the event, and he remembers when there used to be a classic car show that would coincide with the second Sunday antique aircraft displays, drawing larger crowds to the airport event.

Newbury said, “I’ve been doing this event since 2009, and then, when the gentleman who was doing it passed away, I took it over full-time over five years ago. We were getting on average about 35 to 50 planes every month, so that’s pretty good for display.”

Civil Air Patrol member Dan Balderston says his favorite part of display days is seeing kids and people of different generations come out to the airport and take photos with the antique models. Newbury agreed and said that his favorite part of Aircraft Display Days is talking with the public and watching the young kids’ excitement at the sight of planes that are over thirty years old. Newbury personally has a polished airplane that is 85 years old. He explained that he’s got a 1946 air coupe and a 1940 air coupe, both of which he showed me pictures of on his phone.

“It really is for the public and for the kids, and for me, the best part is getting them really interested and talking to them, getting them really excited about aviation,” said Newbury.

The next Antique Aircraft Day will take place on December 14, 2025, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Fullerton Municipal Airport.

For more event information visit: https://www.cityoffullerton.com/government/departments/airport/airport-events.