Event organizers say the festival has grown to be more of a social gathering than a typical trade show, thanks to hundreds of volunteers and Alaska's tight-knit aviation community.

A Michigan man has spent 10 years obsessing over a B-25 Mitchell bomber planted in a Tanana River sandbar since the first Nixon administration. Now he's got the go-ahead to recover the "Sandbar Mitchell" and rebuild it for a warbirds museum exhibit.