If the weather is good, organizers of Saturday’s fly-in and “Rise Above” Tuskegee Airmen exhibit are projecting the event will attract 1,500 to 2,000 people to the Wiscasset Municipal Airport.

That doesn’t count as many as 300 people from youth camps and other groups from as far as Kennebunkport, Lisbon and Lewiston-Auburn slated to preview the exhibit Aug. 17-19, Maine Aeronautics Association (MAA) President Lisa Reece said. However, she is hoping some of those early attendees will return with their families for the larger event for the general public, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 20 at the airport off Chewonki Neck Road.

Admission is free.

The event has been in the planning all year. The MAA’s members, veterans groups, selectmen and the Wiscasset community as a whole have stepped up to make it happen, according to Reece and her husband and fellow organizer Steve Williams. With everyone’s help on cash and in-kind donations, about $18,000 was raised by late spring, Williams said.

Plans call for vintage and general aviation aircraft to be on display, the couple said.

The Commemorative Air Force’s “Rise Above” exhibit features a film on the World War II Tuskegee Airmen squadron, whose black pilots and support crews served before America desegregated its military. About 35 people at a time can sit and view it in the exhibit’s theater, Reece said. Fifteen-minute showings will run one after another throughout the event Saturday, Reece said.

As of Tuesday, the weather was sounding perfect for event-goers and pilots taking part in the fly-in, Williams said.

In phone interviews, Steve Jarrett, commander of Mid-Coast Maine Veterans Council and William Cossette, Jr., commander of American Legion Post 54 of Wiscasset, discussed plans for a ceremony honoring veterans during Saturday’s event. It will include awards to a number of veterans, they said.

They praised the MAA for arranging the event and making local veterans a part of it. “The Tuskegee Airmen’s story needs to get out there,” Jarrett said. He recalled Reece asking if he would lend his help to the event. “I said I damn sure will.”

The veterans ceremony starts at 1 p.m. Saturday and will have a color guard from the Junior ROTC at Lewiston High School, Reece said. The Volunteers Jazz Band will perform right after the approximately half-hour ceremony and keep playing until about 3 p.m., she said.