Parabellum, first of all, I had a fair old crack earlier about the AV airshow. Some of it still stands
I was ground crew for an aircraft performing at the show. The airshow ground crew were excellent to deal with, thanks
there were however some aspects that weren't up to scratch that I suspect weren't air show ground crews fault.
I flew an aircraft out straight after the show, airshow ground crew were brilliant from my perspective, very smooth guys
now, I'll declare my hand, I'm an ATC. The ATC's were superb, well done guys
they had a lot to deal with, with extraordinary good patience
The displays, F22, F18's (proud to watch you do your thing!) Melissa & Skip were the standouts for me
The trade days & the whole focus of the pavilions to me is wrong. Just how much is sold there? Do military buyers actually travel to AV to buy product? Really? If I was buying, I wouldn't be buying at AV. I see no reason why GA, Experimental etc aren't invited/encouraged to attend. Part of my justification for going to Oshkosh was to BUY! And I did. I also bought quite a bit of stuff in Australia from a platinum Garmin dealer. If they were at Avalon it would have been a hell of a lot easier than traipsing up to the Gold Coast.
Do the AV organisers realise how vibrant experimental is? Do they really? C'mon, this airshow could be huge & include everybody not just military buyers, if in fact they here at all??