By Emme Hornung
Vintage aircraft make up the largest category of showplanes at AirVenture (nearly 1,000 in 2025), stretching from just south of Boeing Plaza at the Vintage Red Barn all the way to the amphibs parked in the South 40. Before you spend an entire day walking through the rows of antiques, classics, and contemporaries, you should know there’s a better way to see them all — a way that promises far less walking and far more entertainment.
Run and supported entirely by Vintage Aircraft Association volunteers, the Vintage Tram Tour is a free experience that takes riders through just about every corner of Vintage aircraft parking, with interesting anecdotes and fun facts along the way from knowledgeable narrators.
This year, as we celebrate the Class of ’46, the tour will highlight aircraft that were part of the postwar general aviation boom.
The tour has been around since 1985, and leading it all this time have been Jim and Mary LeFevre. Jim’s dad and uncle became pilots in the 1930s, so his love for aircraft of yesteryear is deeply engrained, and they started bringing Jim to the annual EAA convention since the Rockford days.
Jim and Mary started volunteering in 1984 by helping park airplanes, but the late VAA director emeritus Bob Lumley had an idea to use Jim’s passion to its full potential, and so the tour started the next year.
“They called it Jim and Mary’s Tour at the beginning,” Jim said. In the early years, riders were towed around by a Wheel Horse tractor. “We had the benches screwed to the trailer. They are at the Red Barn now,” Jim added.
The tour has since been upgraded to two trams, but the LeFevre family is still at the helm. In addition to Jim and Mary, their grandson Kyle Barribeau is now a cochairman and is in his 10th year driving the trams, having started at just 16 years old. About 10 other volunteers make up the rest of the team, helping drive the trams and narrate tours.
The tram tour operates daily from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., departing from the Vintage Red Barn and taking 30 to 45 minutes. Whether you want learn more about all the dutifully restored and maintained aircraft visiting Oshkosh or you just need some time to kick back on a hot day, head to the Vintage Red Barn to hop on the next tour, and make sure to thank a volunteer while you’re at it!