Firstly thanks for the responses to date. I have noted all your comments and I am assessing our own event against them to see how we measure up. An initial assessment looks promising, but I try not to rest on my laurels.
I do not intend to comment on every suggestion raised as some we have little or no control over e.g. weather, geography and local airfield operating requirements. However I would like to comment on the following:
Slot Times – As Windy Militant noted there are advantages to slot allocations. We use slots for the reasons given by Windy but try to be as flexible as possible with generous margins (+30 minutes). We try not to turn anyone away either who turns up outside their slot, but responsibility on the day is at the discretion of the ATC team (Aerbabe & co) and the local circumstances at the time.
Yellow tabards – Safety is a paramount consideration for us, for both visitors and our ground crews. In many cases local Health & Safety rules (and best practice) make tabards a requirement. Our ground crews always try to be polite and helpful, which is more than can be said about some pilots (non PPruners presumably!)
Interesting Aircraft/type gatherings – Our event always has type gathering (usually around a significant “birthday” or milestone) as a theme. Over the last few years we have hosted gatherings of Aeronca, Vans, Stampe, Mooney, Jungmann, Stearman, and Bonanzas, to name but a few. Last year the Egelsbach Club also joined us for the weekend.
We are always keen to host type or club gatherings and in 2006 the Piper Comanche and Chipmunk will feature at our event. If anyone wants to hold a group gathering at our event, please drop me a PM.
Finally we all have dreams, with generous donations in lieu of landing fees (ours are free), bikini clad hostesses, free food, perfect weather, no moaners etc on my list also, but we live in a real world.
I look forward to meeting some of you at our event at EGSX on 17-18 June 2006 (I hope that’s ok in the PPrune advertising rules), when you can see how we measure up against your own Fly-In requirements.
Phil
G-APDK