Farnborough Vs Oshkosh no contest!

I saw an article Farnborough Vs Oshkosh on the EAA Hotline
http://www.eaa.org/en/airventure/eaa...indred_Spirits

Being from the UK, also spoke to a couple of people at Oshkosh who said "They would love to go to Farnborough one day" but why? Im not sure why some Americans consider Farnborough to be the major aviation event in the UK. That may have been the case 50 years ago, but not today. Going to Farnborough would be like me coming to the US and only visiting the Dayton Airfair, the AOPA convention or the NBAA show. Farnborough is a trade show focusing mainly on military and high end commercial aviation. Yes there are a few vintage aircraft on the public days, but not much compared to other UK Shows.

The nearest event we have to Oshkosh is the LAA (light Aircraft Association) Fly-in at Sywell (29-31 Aug this year) Here you can fly in, about 1200 aircraft came last year, its mostly homebuilts with some ultralights and vintage aircraft, occasionally a warbird or two. People camp with their aircraft or in the campground. There are exhibitors specialising in sport aviation from hardware supplies to kit manufacturers/distrbutors. There is no airshow, its been found that closing the airfield for one caused too much inconvenience for people flying in and the added costs didn't increase the number of people attending. Its more about meeting your friends and looking at all the interesting aircraft that have arrived. Most years this is the biggest fly-in in Europe.

For a fantastic warbird show you need to go to Duxford, particularly the "Flying Legends" show in July, not as many warbirds as Oshkosh, but more fighters and more variety and a much better flying display. This year numbers were down due to weather keeping some of the mainland European aircraft away ( losing the P38, Morane 406, two Ju52s and others) but we still had 11 Spitfires flying together, Hurricane, Lancaster, 2 Gladiators, Lysander, Hawker Demon, Sea Fury, B17, B25, 2 P40s, P26 Peashooter (all the way from Chino just for this event) 3 P51s, Curtiss Hawk 75, Wildcat, Hellcat, Bearcat, 2 Buchons and more I cant remember! Some photos here https://www.flickr.com/photos/889534...7645757538563/

To see many historic aircraft from a 1909 Bleriot thru ww1 and many aircraft from the 20s and 30s all flying, one of the 12 Shutteworth collection shows a year is a must, at Old Warden.

For modern military then the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford every July is the place to go with aircraft from all over the world and the biggest military show in the world

Other than that there are many fly-ins every weekend with attendance ranging from 20-30 aircraft upto 200 or so at the more popular events and many smaller airshows too.

So there is so much more than Farnborough, which has nothing that Oshkosh needs. Id rather go to Oshkosh any day, which I do every year, but don't bother with Farnborough only 80 miles away.