We look forward to seeing you at Lake Elmo Airport (21D) on Sunday August 10, 2025, for our pancake fly-in. Enjoy plenty of airplanes on the field, a stack of pancakes, sausage, juice, milk and coffee and aviators from the Upper Midwest. Pilots eat free. We'll start at 8 a.m.
The breakfast will tentatively be held on the south side of the airport (near the airport beacon).
More information will be posted here throughout the year.
In the meantime, enjoy these photos from the 2024 fly-in.
LATEST PLANNING INFORMATION
A planning meeting for the August pancake fly-in will be held on Saturday April 19 at the Chapter House at Lake Elmo Airport. Initial volunteer assignments are being made. Initially, returning volunteers are (mostly) assigned where they were last year if the volunteer included that area in their list of acceptable posts. Here, then, is the current list:
If you're on this list but would rather be somewhere else, let us know ASAP. If you're not on the list, please sign up now. We are in need of coordinators for each of these categories, which involves attending a monthly planning meeting and setting up on Saturday as well as communicating ahead of time with your volunteers.
Previously published information
A meeting was held on Saturday March 29 with chapter members interested in volunteering during the event. Among the topics discussed were changes in assignments from last year. Marlon Gunderson is working with the Anoka Civil Air Patrol to see if they would take over the role of aircraft marshalling and take the task completely out of our hands. CAP is reportedly considering the insurance requirements and we hope to have a decision by the next planning meeting, which is scheduled for 10 a.m., Saturday April 19 at the chapter house.
It was determined we will NOT be requesting a temporary FAA control tower and frequency this year. We are considering whether we want a member to occasionally broadcast advisories over CTAF, although there is some concern about liability. We will work with airport officials to append a message to AWOS advising of additional traffic because of the fly-in.
Publicity was another area where we want to increase our exposure. We will hold a fly-out event for members to help distribute flyers to airports around Minnesota and around Wisconsin. We will also target the neighborhood across the street from the airport (about 300 homes). We will leaflet the neighborhood with door hangars which we will have printed. These families have elected to live next to an airport and it's high time we invite them over to get to know us and for us to get to know them and thank them for supporting 21D. We have minor disagreement over whether or how to structure a "neighbor's discount" but we didn't talk about it much. This will be resolved at the next meeting on April 19.
We will also post "lawn signs" at major intersection near the airport one week in advance.
We hope to substantially improve the drive-in attendance this year through increased advertising and outreach, and also by attracting more aircraft to the event.
This year we will provide judging of aircraft whose owners choose to participate, awarding plaques in 3 or 4 categories such as "best homebuilt", "best vintage" etc. We're open to category suggestions.
And we will create a web page within the EAA Chapter 54 website with airport and parking instructions for arriving aircraft and will use a QR code linking to the page in our advertising flyers going out to other airports. This page will probably exist within the "pancake breakfast" section
We agreed to plan for about 800 attendees, which is about what we had planned for last year. We got about half of the planned attendance, despite perfect weather, thus the emphasis on more outreach and advertising. A general price of $10 (same as last year) was agreed upon. We still have to fiddle with other pricing (kids' price?). Pilots-in-command eat free. Volunteers are entitled to eat free although we encourage chapter members to remember that we are trying to raise money for our youth outreach activities and consider making a donation when eating.
We have not yet settled on a menu. We'd like to reduce the cost of sausage, eliminate the sugary fruit cocktail, perhaps add french toast, and add a healthier fruit option, although we're not quite sure how to do that yet. We will be meeting with the Washington County Board of Health in the near future to evaluate what we are capable of with limited facilities. Some food preparation may occur at the Chapter House and we would like to eliminate the use of the giant "beast" chiller and utilize the refrigeration at the Chapter House (thus the need for "runners"). Anyone have a golf cart?
Depending on whether we add french toast to the menu, we may need a Blackstone griddle. Do any chapter members have one? We are reluctant at this time to add chapter assets and would rather borrow one.
We want to be more sustainable, eliminating styrofoam cups, for example, and replacing with paper (as we've done at the chapter house, you may have noticed).
A site for the event has not yet been selected although we would like to hold it in last year's spot if the hangar owners are agreeable, moving the grill outside to protect the hangar floor or putting down a temporary plywood floor to protect it.
The idea of renting an exhibit table for other organizations ($50 was suggested) is being considered.
A form has been created to try to ascertain the areas of interest and number of volunteers. It is available here and we're asking all members to submit it as soon as possible, and, yes, we will totally be browbeating you over the next few months until you volunteer.
