I don't think I'll fly in again. Just not worth the angst. Which also means I'm less likely to go. It also is a very very bad look in front of passengers.
I think a thing about the airshow is that because the exhibition halls are so prominent, GA people think there is something for them there. But the major focus is on military. There are 4 trade days and 2 1/2 public days. The trade days include a whole host of activities that are not immediately evident. Technical lectures, site visits - all sorts of things. There was some great stuff in the exhibition halls and I had a good time. Deakin uni was there with some ground-breaking kevlar production technology that I got a lot out of. But very little of it was GA related. The defence and professional guys must get good value, because they keep coming back and taking big stands and chalets. That's where the real money is. Guys like us buying maps, books, EPIRBS and other stuff are really just window dressing.
The airshow is the pinnacle of Australian airshows. At others you can get closer to warbirds, etc. But Avalon is the only place you can see a Raptor and wonder how it flies. Its the only place you'll see such an amazing piece of showmanship from a Schweizer 300. Its a small thing, but the job the Extra pilot did to fly close to the deadline in knife-edge on a day with a strong crosswind was masterful. The sun caught the aircraft and you could see every twitch of the controls. He was working very hard.
The thing the airshow has never really been able to do well is integrate GA. Part of the issue (I suspect) is that the displays and aircraft need to be there a week prior. The ideal would be to be able to set up a GA community on the Friday that was only present for the public days. But that would be logistically difficult. Its also likely to have CASA all over it. I don't know why we don't really have Australian Acts at the airshow anymore. The early Avalon airshows did. I suspect that part of the answer lies in the grief that CASA gives local guys and that their ability to "monster" foreign pilots in foreign registered aircraft is just a lot less. No one in an N-registered aircraft would have taken the cr*ap we had to from a CASA ramp guy.
If you accept it for what it is, I think its pretty good. Maybe the challenge is to create a seperate GA airshow that showcases local flying schools, has a park & sell aircraft area, gets the likes of Garmin, Avidyne & Aspen displaying GA stuff and pilot shops selling a raft of pilot shop stuff. But, I used to run airshows in the eighties and I don't think I would want to do it again with the current attitude in CASA. In the olden days they'd help you to work around the rules. Now they're searching for the obscure regulation to hit you with.
Last edited by Old Akro; 2nd Mar 2013 at 22:04.