The last Rotary Fly-In Breakfast at Dunkirk airport was held in 2019.

A summer tradition is ready to land again in the north county.

After a three year hiatus, the Dunkirk-Fredonia Rotary Club will host its 56th Annual Fly-In Breakfast on Sunday, July 23 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Chautauqua County Airport in Dunkirk at 3389 Middle Road. The event will feature a military aircraft. The main sponsors of this year’s event are Lake Shore Savings Bank, DFT Communications, the Brooks-TLC Hospital System and Graf Realty.

Rotary volunteers will serve breakfast in one of the hangars from 8 a.m. to noon or until supplies run out. The menu includes all-you-can-eat pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, coffee, decaf, juice, water, and milk. Tickets are available online at tinyurl.com/2023FIB and at the door.

Private aircraft pilots from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and beyond come to the event each year to have their planes seen up close and personal by some 1,200 guests. Experimental and antique planes are usually among those displayed. Organizers for the event explained that visiting pilots get to eat for a fee, and the cost for local residents is only $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under.

An arts and crafts fair will be held in an adjacent hangar. Great Lakes Flight Center will offer discovery flights. These flights will cost $150 for a half hour and $250 for one hour. One individual will copilot the plane with a flight instructor with room for up to two additional passengers. The flight instructor will walk the guest through the steps to safely fly an aircraft while showing off the beauty of Lake Erie and Western New York.

The annual Fly-In Breakfast is the local Rotary Club’s most complex and involved project of the year. The co-chairs for the event are Will Pekrul and Margie Dye. The event’s proceeds will benefit local organizations and causes in our community. The proceeds also support high school scholarships at Dunkirk and Fredonia High Schools, as well as the Rotary Youth Exchange Program.