Airshow economics

[Dr Jekyll]

I've been watching a reality TV series on Amazon Prime following some airshow teams in the US and Canada during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. A lot of repetition and some artificial drama as you'd expect but interesting and entertaining nevertheless.
One of the characters followed is described as a 'professional wing walker'. Implying she runs her Stearman and support truck and pays her pilot purely out of airshow fees and sponsorship. Is this really feasible? There is also the Patriots L39 team, 6 jets in the display plus a spare, heavily reliant on Sponsorship but it's implied to be more or less breaking even after that. They all cover vast distances between shows.

Just how much would those kind of acts charge for an airshow appearance? And roughly how much must the L39 team cost to run? There was a mention of $15,000 in fuel alone for having an additional practice session which seems a bit high to me.

[Zombywoof]

That wingwalker has her own website. You might want to take a look at it.

[Dr Jekyll]

That wingwalker has her own website. You might want to take a look at it.
I have. But now it's a different, larger team so the economics are different. The pilot she had in the series was killed in a crash in 2016.

[treadigraph]

Was that the woman who died when the pilot fluffed a low level roll to inverted?

Reading a Brian Lecomber article recently about a season circa 1980 when he ran a Stampe and his first Pitts, lot of hard work chasing up appearance opportunities and sponsorship, trying to fit in practice, get the aircraft up to scratch, etc. This was probably around the time he began to be a display must have...

[Dr Jekyll]

Was that the woman who died when the pilot fluffed a low level roll to inverted?

Reading a Brian Lecomber article recently about a season circa 1980 when he ran a Stampe and his first Pitts, lot of hard work chasing up appearance opportunities and sponsorship, trying to fit in practice, get the aircraft up to scratch, etc. This was probably around the time he began to be a display must have...

No, if you're referring to the Dayton crash, that was Jane Wicker and the accident was referred to in the show.

[Zombywoof]

The pilot she had in the series was killed in a crash in 2016.Yes, I seem to recall there was video of the maneuver. Most unfortunate. Sometimes even the best pilots... Scott Crossfield, Steve Fossett, Art Scholl... it's a long list. I witnessed a fatal air show crash when I was 11 years old. Remember it like it was yesterday. I was standing and when the jet hit the water my legs became rubber.

I viewed the series you're watching during its initial airing.

[Cots889]

What was the name of the Amazon series?

[Dr Jekyll]

What was the name of the Amazon series?

Airshow.