A couple of years ago I was researching things to do in Washington D.C. with young people. I found out that the same weekend we’d planned to head up for an educational trip to the African American History Museum, there was something called the Dulles Day Plane Pull.
When I realized we’d be in Northern VA for this year’s event, I knew we had to attend.
What’s The Dulles Day Plane Pull?
It’s just like it sounds. Teams of up to 25 people try to pull an 82 ton airplane 12 feet in the fastest time at Dulles International Airport. It costs $2,500 for a team to enter and they try to do more fundraising, with all of the funds going to support the Special Olympics of Virginia.
There’s more to the day, including airplanes to tour, fire trucks to ride on, a FedEx plane to explore (one of the original sponsors of the event) and even a dump truck pull for kids. There’s also all the usual fair foods, food trucks, bounce houses, vendors and a few games. But the main event is watching all these teams trying to pull the United and FedEx planes the fastest.
Attendance and parking is free for the event. The food was priced as you’d expect from fair and food trucks, but if you really want a bargain and to help the Special Olympics even further, they had their own food tents with $1 hot dogs and more.
Every vendor had a donation bucket and most of the games and activities were for a donation to the Special Olympics. You could ride a fire truck up and down the runway, ride around the air field and pull the dump truck for donations of $5-10. Everyone was there to support the Special Olympics athletes. And the athletes were also out in force and were the first to pull the plane to kick off the event.
This was the 27th year of the event. And it shows. There was clockwork precision getting from the event parking to the event itself. We’ve never attended anything so well organized. You’re directed (with a flagger every 20-50 feet) through the parking lot and line up right in your spot, facing the exit for later. You take the walkway and ride on the free shuttle buses over to the event.
You arrive and go through a security check. There are some items that aren’t allowed, but if you brought a picnic you could easily get that in and eat it, just no coolers. As I mentioned above, there were plenty of food and drink options available. The one thing that seemed harder to find were port-a-potties. I think they were around the edges but they weren’t very well marked or signposted.
Once through security, you’re greeted by planes from different eras, countries and uses. We waited in the line for one of the large cargo planes – get there early if that’s something you want to see as the lines only get longer and the plane only gets hotter! It was cool to see and worth the wait if you have a child that LOVES planes.
There’s a car show which was very interesting. It’s surprisingly inexpensive to enter as it’s only ~$20. We have some thoughts and think our car should be entered at the end of the road trip once it’s been to all 50 states – maybe raffle it off for the Special Olympics.
You can go up in the FedEx plane and see all the other vendors, games and food on your way to the area for the plane pull. We grabbed our food from Two Smooth Dudes and it was great!
Here’s a compilation of a few of the plane pulls we watched, including the first with all the Special Olympics Athletes to kick it off! The AEM team makes a special feature in our video with the athletes and the FedEx team because we met Beth from AEM on the shuttle over and this was her first time participating in the event. Her excitement was contagious and we promised to be there to cheer her on – we were and her team did great!
Here are the results from 2019 on both the United and FedEx planes.
Final Thoughts
The Dulles Day Plane Pull is a great day – free, fun, fundraiser – what’s not to love!? We’ll be towards the end of our road trip by the 30th Anniversary or we can be finished and raffle the car at the 31st Anniversary – should we get a No Home Just Roam team together to pull a plane to celebrate!? Those that are too far could donate to the cause, anyone on the East Coast (or super fans!) could come and pull in person. Let us know in the comments below.
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