WWII plane to visit Fly In Breakfast Sunday
Trending
The Dunkirk-Fredonia Rotary Club is welcoming a historic World War II warplane at its 59th Annual Fly-In Breakfast on Sunday, July 26, at the Chautauqua County / Dunkirk Airport located at 3389 Middle Road.
The National Warplane Museum, a volunteer-run non-profit organization based in Geneseo, NY, will be sending its iconic "Whiskey 7" World War II Douglas C47 aircraft to participate in the event. "Whiskey 7" was the lead plane in the second wave of planes to drop American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division into Normandy, behind German lines, on D-Day (June 6, 1944).
The aircraft also participated in several other of the most important airborne operations of the European campaign of World War II, including Operation Market Garden and Operation Varsity. Thus, this single warplane participated in three of the largest airborne assaults ever conducted. It even returned to Normandy in the spring of 2014 for the 70th anniversary of D-Day, retracing its original route and dropping modern paratroopers over the same drop zones where it had flown in combat in 1944.
HOW WHISKEY 7 GOT ITS NAME
During its wartime service with the 316th Troop Carrier Group, the aircraft carried the fuselage marking "W7" (painted just ahead of the U.S. star-and-bar insignia). Pilots and crews commonly referred to the airplane by that code. In the modern NATO phonetic alphabet, "W" is spoken as "Whiskey," so "W7" became "Whiskey 7." But there is one interesting historical wrinkle.
In 1944, when the aircraft flew combat missions over Normandy, the U.S. military was not yet using the NATO phonetic alphabet. At that time, the letter W was spoken as "William," so the crews who flew her on D-Day would almost certainly have called her "William Seven." The NATO alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie… Whiskey…) was not adopted until the mid-1950s. The museum uses the modern nomenclature because it is more familiar to today's audiences.
The appearance of "Whiskey 7" at Rotary's Fly-In Breakfast is made possible with the generous financial support of Gugino and Ryel Financial. The lead event sponsors for the breakfast are Cattaraugus County Bank , DFT Communications, and Brooks Hospital/TLC Hospital System, Inc.
Breakfast will be served by Rotary volunteers in Hangar No. 1 from 8 a.m. to Noon (or until sold out). The all-you-can-eat menu includes pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, coffee, juice, tea and milk. Advance sale tickets for the breakfast and for rides on "Whiskey 7" are available at tinyurl.com/2026FIB. Tickets will also be available at the door.
An arts & crafts/vendor fair will be held in Harger No. 2, and Rotary's annual "famous" basket raffle will also be held at the event. The Great Lakes Flight Center will be offering "Discovery Flights" in 2- and 4-passenger Cessna airplanes for a fee. And the Civil Air Patrol will be offering free hands-on demonstrations with its two ground-based flight simulators.
The National Warplane Museum in Geneseo, New York, is one of the nation's premier living history aviation museums. Dedicated to honoring America’s veterans, the museum restores, preserves, and flies authentic World War II and Korean War-era military aircraft, allowing visitors to experience history in motion rather than merely through static displays. In addition to being the home for "Whiskey 7," the museum offers hands-on exhibits, restoration projects, and the annual Geneseo Airshow, known as the "Greatest Show on Turf," held on the museum's historic grass airfield.
The Dunkirk-Fredonia Rotary Club is part of Rotary International, a global volunteer service organization that brings together more than 1.2 million members in over 200 countries and geographic areas to provide humanitarian service, promote integrity, and advance goodwill and peace. Net proceeds from the event enable the Dunkirk-Fredonia Rotary to award scholarships to local high school seniors, award grants to area non-profits, and to support Rotary International initiatives including clean water, maternal-child health and the eradication of polio worldwide.