Cape air festival set to return July 11-13

Business Today

The Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival will take to the skies this year after a one-year hiatus because of difficulties in securing corporate sponsors.

The "Heroes and Legends" festival is scheduled for July 11-13 at the airport and will feature Lima Lima, the world's only six-plane civilian formation aerobatic team.

The team, based out of Naperville, Ill., does aerobatic maneuvers that mirror those of the military jet stunt teams.

In its 12th year of performing, the team has flown in front of more than 100 million spectators from coast-to-coast.

This year's festival, the fifth such festival for the airport, will include a Friday night twilight show in addition to the daytime Saturday and Sunday shows. On Saturday, 20-member teams will compete to see who can pull a Federal Express 727 airplane a distance of 12 feet in the fastest time, said Kristi Thurman, project assistant at the Cape Girardeau airport.

Proceeds from the team entry fee will go to benefit Special Olympics and the United Way, she said. Final details for the event are still being worked out.

The festival also will include aerobatic displays by U.S. Navy and Air Force jets.

Thurman said it costs about $100,000 to put on the air show with private funding paying about half the cost. The rest comes from ticket sales and vendor booths.

A poor economy was blamed for fund-raising problems last year. "We kind of waited too long to work with sponsors," Thurman said.

This year, airport officials began planning well in advance of the air show. "We started a lot sooner on our sponsorships," Thurman said.