Ask Chuck Hamm what it’s like to fly a 70-year-old biplane, and he responds with a question of his own.

“Have you ever felt a cloud?”

Ask another pilot, and Jeff Paulson describes something that sounds like an open-cockpit time machine.

They’re among 300 or so pilots who will make time fly this weekend during the Northwest Antique Airplane Club Fly-In at Pearson Field.

It’s a fitting site for the event’s 50th anniversary. This marks the fly-in’s first return to Pearson since the inaugural event was held there.

Many of the classic aircraft are survivors of an open-cockpit era when aviation was much more of a hands-on experience.

And not just for the pilots, but for the passengers as well. That was why Hamm wasn’t kidding with his question about feeling clouds.

Hamm said he will fly into a cloud and tell his passenger: “Put your hands out. You can feel the density, pressure and moisture.

”You can’t do that in an enclosed plane,“ Hamm said.

”It’s the difference between going through Yellowstone in a car with the windows closed, or riding a bicycle,“ the Scappoose, Ore., aviator said.

From Scappoose, Hamm piloted a World War II veteran to Vancouver, a 1942 Stearman biplane that was used to train U.S. Navy pilots.

As part of the renovation, Hamm changed the plane’s ”uniform,“ repainting it to resemble the Coast Guard airplanes that patrolled the Oregon Coast during WWII.

Paulson, also a Scappoose airplane restorer, arrived in a 1929 biplane owned by a Portland flying enthusiast.

The Travel Air E4000 was built by a company that was pretty much an all-star team of aviation pioneers — Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman.

Back in its day, the plane was the ultimate in executive travel, with room in the front seat for two passengers.

”They only built 1,800 of these,“ Paulson said. And with all the different combinations of engines, wings, brakes and wheels, ”No two are the same,“ he said.

A similar Travel Air biplane was part of Vancouver’s early aviation scene, added Bill Alley, manager of the Pearson Air Museum.

”One of these was based at Pearson when this was Portland’s airmail stop.

The orange-colored plane restored by Paulson worked as a crop duster into the 1960s. It still isn’t ready for retirement.

“It flies; it doesn’t just sit in a hangar,” Paulson said. “It’s not a museum piece.”

But the Travel Air can provide an exercise in aviation history.

“You’re stepping back into another era,” Paulson said.

He flew the Travel Air to a recent aviation event in Reno, Nev., where more than 600 people had a chance to climb into the cockpit of the parked plane.

Even Air Force fighter pilots can be captivated by the feel of the 80-year-old plane, Paulson said.

“Some F-22 pilots were in awe: ’This is what flying is all about,”’ Paulson said.

Visitors will be able to purchase biplane rides from Stu “Cap’n Mac” MacPherson. (Adults, $65 per passenger; children 12 and under, $45 per passenger; solo passenger, $95.) His craft is a 1929 Travel Air.

There will be hot air balloon night glows at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, by Woodland-based Morning Star Balloon Co.