Originally Posted by
runway16
Well the council finally succeeded!
This year there were only 40 aircraft at the Birdsville Races. Probably lucky as the rains had turned the non hard-stand into a quagmire. The ARO had a real job getting aircraft into a parking spot. Good work. The cost of $200 arrival fee then $25 landing fee and then another $25 overnight parking finally put off people wanting to fly to the the event. Years ago there were 250-300 aircraft at the BDV Races. This year a change of heart by council. No fees.
Looking at the ASA AIC Sup it stated that there were no landing/parking fees for aircraft below 3300 kb. Too late for those that were keen to go but did they know about the nil fees option. And if they did it would have been too late to buy race entry tickets.
The last BDV Races that I heard about there were only 80 aircraft arriving. This year half that number. If someone heard about the no-fees close to the race date they would have said too late to buy race tickets and arrange a flight to BDV.
The race. No race on the Friday. The race track was awash. Saturday a late start after graders made a reasonably dry track. Head numbers? I reckon about 3-4000.
Comment welcome.
CASA has contributed to the decline of this once great event. Sneaking around corners and dressed incognito and pinging some poor unsuspecting Pilot for a logbook error or for failing to switch the beacons on. Fun times have been overinsured and over regulated to death. I would rather mud-wrestle Barb from Windorah! Good old days 🤣