BROOKINGS — Flapjacks and flight will be on the menu July 13 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Brookings Regional Airport during the Fly/Drive-In Breakfast sponsored by both the SDSU Women in Aviation Club and the Flying Jacks Club. 

“We’ll be serving pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage,” Madeline Davis, president of the Women in Aviation Club, said. “There’ll also be an opportunity, for a small fee, to go on a discovery flight. We’ll have some of our certified flight instructors, they’ll be able to take you up in an airplane, do a little lap around Brookings. And you can kind of point out where you live, where you go to school, where you work, whatever.”

The discovery flights cost $25 per passenger and take folks on a 15 minute, bird’s eye tour of Brookings. The breakfast is a free will donation, featuring locally-sourced eggs donated by Dakota Layers of Flandreau. 

“We’re super thankful for their donation. They’re donating 720 eggs to us. So we’re super, super excited about that,” Davis said. “So a cash, free will donation is highly appreciated but not required at all. We will just be happy to see everybody there.”

Although the fundraiser is billed as a “fly in,” Davis said both aviators and motorists are welcome.

“We’ll have parking available at the airport. We encourage people to drive in. We understand not everybody has access to an airplane. We are highly anticipating a couple of people to fly in, but we’re assuming most of our crowd — we’re hoping — will just drive in from the Brookings community,” Davis said. “I know sometimes we have a couple aviation chapters near, like Sioux Falls and just kind of out in the bigger cities, who will fly in and just see what’s going on — just kind of talk with us and kind of see what the younger people in aviation are up to. So I can’t say for sure who will be flying in, but we do have some people we’re hoping will fly in.”

Visitors will also have the opportunity to see a wide range of different aircraft up close.

“SDSU has some pretty great airplanes, especially this year. We’ve gotten a couple new ones. So we’re going to be sure to have those out and on display so we can show off our newly acquired aircraft,” Davis said.

They hope to promote and raise money for both of the student aviation groups at SDSU.

“We’re co-hosting it with the Flying Jacks, so the funds will be split between the Flying Jacks and the Women in Aviation Club. And the Women in Aviation Club is preparing to go to the Women in Aviation Conference in Denver, Colorado this upcoming year. So that’s what our funds will be used for,” Davis said. “We’ll be spending three to four days in Denver. It’s a conference, so there’ll be a lot of different airlines there, a lot of different representatives. We’ll be able to build a lot of connections, learn a lot, listen to a lot of lectures, and really just get a lot of professional connections and exposure to the industry, and just share our love of aviation with people from both all over the United States and all over the world.”

She said the objective of the club is to inspire people to learn more about aviation and develop a love of flying.

“My biggest goal as president is to make sure everybody in our club feels supported, and that everybody is able to make those connections and get these opportunities to meet people and learn new things — to make sure that we have our best foot forward representing SDSU as we step into the aviation industry,” Davis said. 

Email Jay Roe at jroe@brookingsregister.com.