PENN TWP — The public is invited to a huge birthday party on Saturday, and they should be just plane excited about it.

The Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport on Airport Road will celebrate its 90th birthday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 28, which is the exact date of the airport's grand opening in 1929.

Raffles every 15 minutes for free airplane rides, a Top Fun Kids' Zone, antique aircraft displays, food trucks, a “fly market” aviation swap meet, a basket raffle, music, games and prizes will be held at the event.

There will be no admission to attend the event, but the Top Fun Kids' Zone will cost parents $2 for three minutes in the bounce house or wacky ball inflated game.

Plane rides for those unable to stay for the raffles will be available for $10 per person.

“The event will give all Butler County residents the opportunity to take off and land on the same runway used by Amelia Earhart decades ago,” said a news release from the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport Authority.

Among the antique aircraft on display will be the nationally renowned 1939 Spartan Executive owned by Jim Savage and housed at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport.

Articles in the Sept. 30, 1929, Butler Eagle report that a three-day celebration feted the opening of the new “Pittsburgh-Butler Airport” that year.

Several dignitaries participated in its grand opening, including Lt. A.S. Edwards of Cincinnati, the co-designer and builder of the Spirit of St. Louis, which took Charles A. Lindbergh across the Atlantic two years earlier.

“The lieutenant spoke highly of the local airport and said that it was perfectly situated,” said the archived article.

Ike Kelly, the current airport manager, said he especially welcomes county residents who have no connection to or have never visited the airport.

“When people come down here who have never been here before, they say, 'I never realized it was this big,'” Kelly said.

Youngsters who attend could also end up affecting the huge pilot shortage now occurring in the United States.

“A lot of people in the area who started as watching airplanes here ended up being airline captains flying across the Atlantic,” Kelly said. “Others went on to the military.”

More information on the event is available at butlercountyairport.org.