Avalon Air Show - Waste Of Time
 

Avalon Airshow is an expensive waste of time this year. I even took my cheque book and was looking to perhaps start buying the odd bit for the build. I was even prepared to be charmed by some new aircraft.

What a waste of time.

To the Lycoming salesman:

Wonderful to finally see the io 233 at last, pity you didn't have time to tell me anything about it apart from " it's 23,000" for what exactly?

To the garmin guys: thanks for the brochures and the offer of a follow up via email, pity there were no working models of anything.

Nice to see the Connie and Catalina and the b52.

Pity the bars didn't open till 2,00 pm. - and the $60 entrance fee,

Nothing new - a total waste of time unless you are a spotter or a ten year old,

Stopped going when they started charging admission for all the fly-in aircraft.Living in Darwin you get a military airshow every two years. PITCH BLACK!

I was in the process of asking the Lycoming man why I should buy his engine instead of rotax 912 - giving him an opportunity to sell it to me, when he decided it was more important to do something else. When you couple this behaviour with the rotten uninformative Lycoming website and the total lack of information about the mythical IO 233, then they can jam the engine up their proverbial.

By way of comparison, I can download the entire documentary suite for the rotax 912 iS from the web - installation, POH, maintenance, heavy maintenance and IPC - it's all there.

Oh, but I did pick up the condescending Lycoming brochure about not running lean of peak. That document implies we are all too stupid to be trusted to do it successfully.

It's like everything else in this country..... Return on investment.

Bbbbbzzzzzzzzzz

Salesman are professionally trained to quickly qualify potential customers Sunfish, and then take an appropriate approach

I enjoyed the day yesterday. Met a bunch of people I haven't seen for a while on the trade displays and in the chalets. Enjoyed the show. But not much of my interest was in the GA stands.

Frankly, I would have gone to just see the Meteor fly. And the Raptor display was breathtaking. I don't understand how areoplanes can do some of the things it does. No matter how many times I see the Catalina & Connie I enjoy it and its good to leave some money behind with HARS. The surprise enjoyment was from that silly little Schweizer 300. That was a very clever act. I even was impressed with the Breitling Wing Walkers.

Its interesting, however, to reflect that all the really good acts were from the US. I suspect a large part of the reason is that you just couldn't legally develop and practice an act like that in Australia.

So, I'm glad I spent the day there and would go again. However, I'll be driving.

Seriously the CASA ramp checks were officious, tedious, meddling, pedantic with punitive intent and no regard to courtesy to the passengers. I reckon we spent more time with the CASA guy than we spent in the air flying there. He had every piece of paper and document spread out over the wing. He went through the flight manual page by page and took glee in finding what he thought was an error. Many photos of documents and recording of names and other filling out of sheets was done. Turns out the CASA guy was completely wrong. The Airshows Downunder guys are saying that CASA is twice as difficult this year as any other year and (at least yesterday) were ramp checking every single aircraft. As bad as CASA was, the Airshows Downunder officials were magnificent.

Of course CASA is ramping every GA aircraft, after all, we are "criminals who just haven't been caught yet" aren't we?

Now that I think about it, I' surprised that their palatial exhibition stand didn't have a scoreboard of deficiencies found, regulations contravened and a league ladder.

The possibility of a Raping, sorry "a ramping" by CASA is the reason I avoid the Birdsville races, Temora warbirds, natfly etc. I'm sure more stories of their behaviour will appear over the weekend.

I've been to every Avalon show.
This one seemed to have low numbers.
Several International exhibitors that I know told me the charges now make the Avalon show one of the most expensive in the world and they do not intend to return in 2 years unless the charges are reduced.
Can't see that happening!.

I heard an ex Raa employee was leading up the ramp check team and he is known to have all of the attributes listed above so I am not surprised to hear that and am equally disappointed. I know of many that didn't bother flying in as they were expecting exactly what you have described.


I was going to post a photo of the 300 shortly noting that it has US N Rego and that surely someone in this country is capable of such flying. Bu golly it was making a lot of noise an sounded like it was working hard! No doubt it was expensive to ship it here too. Seems the Breitling aircraft didn't get repaired in time either.

I was impressed with the trade hall, lots of vendors wanting to talk to the punters, lots of new products and a great overseas contingent of vendors.

I witnessed a shameful display from some guy hassling the Cirrus dealer about dodgey wiring in an aircraft, I felt sorry for the yank. He was threatening to expose this "issue" on a forum or some crap. Poor guy had nothing better to do.

It was quiet when we arrived, but when we left (after it was open to the public) it looked as every bit as busy as previous years.

There were less serious military stands there this year - but I suspect that this is more about the military buying cycle. 2 years ago the LAND 121 contract was in full swing and all the military vehicle guys were there with exhibition stands and vehicle demonstrations. I didn't see any military vehicles this time. There were also less UAV's, so I presume there is not as much selling activity around them

Because Avalon East was not opened until mid afternoon Thursday, I think the fly-in numbers were down. There weren't many aircraft when we arrived.

I actually enjoyed myself, fly in on Friday was fantastic.
I have no idea how, but I managed to get in without paying a cent. Chicken burgers where a treat yet overly priced.
CASA's stall was nice. The gentleman and lady were a treat to speak to. Can't say the same about their coffee :}
An enjoyable day overall. Photos will be uploaded once I get the chance. T&G :ok:

I wonder what this bs is supposed to do.

...but the US defence force has just cut the budget for the Thunderbirds for the rest of 2013, and the Blue Angels look like they are next.

Very sad.

Fantome, I think he's talking about MP.

Well, the F22 was friggin' awesome. The flat spin he was doing.........how? The RAAF formation flying and display was excellent, well done F18 fellas :ok:

Skip & Melissa were sensational & great people, loved your show. :ok:

But we keep getting back to CASA & their disgraceful, beaurecratic, red tape driven embarrassment of a performance. One of the above pilots spent 11 months converting their FAA licence. Speaking to another fella today, he's up to 6 months. For chrissakes, if any of you lot got off your arses and processed the paperwork that the 'user pays' for instead of hassling 90% of competent pilots you may get an ounce of respect :ugh:

Credit where it's due, the R1 parking was brilliant :ok: saved me a huge amount of time. The 3 pavilions, what can you say? There's not a lot for GA. I spent a heap at OSH, I bought a hotdog at AV. I would love to have the luxury of ignoring a market segment in my business. 8 bucks for a snag in a roll & they run out of bratwurst, onion, cheese, everything but the snag & tomato sauce @ midday on Thursday. Australians', guns at service & obviously air safety & regulation ;)

Jack, salesmen have many tales of the guy walking in to the showroom in overalls and buying a Rolls Royce. The old bloke I often sail with turned up in the "wife's car" a month or Two ago. His old Merc was getting serviced.

Mrs. G's car turned out to be a new Bentley coupe.

If someone tried honeyed words on me at Avalon, I mights have put a deposit on a new diesel powered c182 and forgotten about what I'm building.

If you have the cash for a new 182 Sunfish and don't buy it because the salesperson wasnt suger coating it for you, then you are the one who is missing out I'm afraid. They will just sell it to someone else instead.

Ramp Check - Avalon East
 

So folks - has anyone actually been ramped at Avalon East to date? Asked a few pals who flew in and they haven't seen/heard anything during their visits?

Sunny, seriously, go to OSH & you'll see what aviation is about :ok: