Hi Sunni, I half agree!
Went today. Kudos to RAAF flying display. As for the rest, even less to see than last time. Nothing to buy either. I could have been swayed to buy a gtr625 or a 225 from garmin if they has been interested in selling, but no.
I'm a serious buyer for a GTN, new TXP and a G600. Played with the gear, entered my previous day's flight plan. Tried the Garmin iPad app. But got the same attitude from the Garmin rep. I'm a LOT less likely to buy Garmin after visiting the stand. Got a lot more sense out of the AvPlan stand where there were a lot of senior people accessible, including Bevan.
CASA stand was busy serving free coffee, I didn't go near them purely out of fear although there are questions I want answered.
I was going to go to the CASA stand - especially since they have made a cock-up of my Pt 61 licence - until I saw the personnel list for the stand. All junior communications staff. Saw Mark Skidmore wandering around the front of Hall 1 (no where near the CASA stand) all alone looking friendless.
Waste of time unless you are a military onanist, plenty of them about in the afternoon.
Avalon is gradually dieing like the aviation sector in general.
Avalon is primarily a military airshow. It has peaks & troughs depending on the Dept of Defense buying cycle. If you look at all the meeting rooms, conference rooms and Chalets, they were all full on the trade days and not many of the people were watching airshow acts. They were doing business.
However. it is disappointing that it no longer engages with the civil aviation community. There used to be display booths by various sport aviation clubs and historic and sport aviation displays - all of which seem to be gone now.
A common thread talking to some senior people associated with the airshow is that each year, CASA makes it harder for the organisers.
And what is the fascination with blowing stuff up along the runway?? Surely there is one F-111 somewhere that can still do a dump & burn??
I was there only for the trade days, but my single greatest annoyance is that nothing seemed to happen in the published order or within 2 hours of the published time.