lets improve the airshow!

[nigel hitchman]

I had a great 5 and a half days at Oshkosh, Sunday to Friday morning. Great turnout of aircraft, although the warbirds were a bit down and met up with many many friends, always great time.
But as is often the case (think this was my 28th Oshkosh) the biggest disappointment and frustration is the airshow. It seems to me that far too much emphasis is given to the established airshow acts or sponsors aircraft, but not to what is unique to Oshkosh, the interesting aircraft that the members bring. The airshow is also too long with too many aerobatic acts all very similar that go on for ages.

Most frustrating was the GeeBee QED, to many the highlight of Oshkosh this year, they only flew one day (perhaps their choice) but then just took off, did one pass (which was great for photos thanks) and then landed on 27 rather than 36 infront of us, I don't think that was their choice, the wind was very light. I imagine it was due to the airboss who wanted the next act on the runway. The next act was yet another aerobatic act (Orange CAP/Extra etc) which had at least twice the time the GeeBee did. Surely the GeeBee could have done 3 or 4 passes, even if they were fairly straight and level, much more interesting to see. Earlier a BD5 variant had done 10 or more very similar mildly aerobatic passes, taking a lot of time, but they were an established act with sponors I guess.
We even had the TBM900 doing a much longer display, of little interest to most people, but a sponsor, so I guess that is why they get a longer timeslot.
Similarly the Fairey Gannet only did one pass and then landed, at least on 36.

I did like the Breezy fly-bys this was probably the highlight of the airshow, but again they could have flown by more than once, as could the homebuilts in the homebuilt review.
The vintage review was a big disappointment, seeing this on the list earlier in the week I was hoping we were going to return to the good old days of the Vintage parade of flight which lasted 30-40 minutes and featured many vintage aircraft. This year we could have had some good choices with the Lockheed 12s, Fairchild 71s, Vega, Travelair D4D, Travelair B14, Staggerwings, Howards, Wacos etc. But then saw it was only 15 minutes! And even more disappointed when we saw just 5 or 6 Classics were to take part! We really need to make more effort to try to get some of the more interesting vintage aircraft flying in the show. Obviously some owners don't want to fly, but surely some do.

The warbird shows are also particularly frustrating. Monday as we wanted to see the Gannet, we stood by 18/36 and waited for the warbird arrivals, they came in their formations,quite a few high flybys and a couple of lower fly bys, then started to break off to land. Now time for some good landing photos we thought!! But, no, they all landed on 27! Wind wasn't a factor and for the first 10 minutes of them landing there wasn't anything happening on 18/36 at all, just the announcer continuing his talking. Even when something did happen it was just yet another aerobatic act. Surely it would be much more interesting for the crowd to watch the warbirds land. Tuesday we stood by 27 at the end of the warbirds and had a much better show with nearly everything landing infront of us, the added bonus here being well away from the speakers, so we could hear the aircraft rather than the announcers.

Ive long found the style of the warbird show disappointing, the big formations of trainers are OK, but cant they do anything else (of course the Trojan Horsemen are a notable exception) The liaison/trainers fly around in circles miles away, one close lower pass would be better! and then the fighters (Very few this year) also just do fast straight passes far away, pulling up at the end, then circle round and do the same thing again and again.
The one improvement this year was the formation of 4 T33s which were great to see. The next best "warbird show" were the 4 Stearmans who did 4 or 5 different formation passes down 27 during Friday morning.

I missed the "big" Friday warbird show as I had left by then, but a friend told me it was very poor with no fighters, the only bomber being an OV-1 and no Liaisons either, a lot less than Tuesday. We did notice many warbirds had left on Friday morning.

Perhaps someone needs to visit Duxford or La Ferte Alais in France to see what can be done for a warbird airshow, although at Oshkosh 2013 the Texas flying legend showed how it could be done.

[glider90]

As a long time visitor that loved my eight days in Osh, I have to say I feel the same as you. Everything was great, but the air shows could be improved. The T-33's were cool, as was the TX Flying Legends dogfight, but beyond that a major disappointment. The “Tora Tora Tora” and TX Flying Legends shows of 2013 were superb, and I hoped that we would see more of that in the future, but I was wrong. I know weather impacted Friday, but the rest of the week was no better.
There were two P-38's on the ramp capable of flying. Would have loved to see them do a flyby together. Throw the zero in there for them to chase around and you have a very memorable formation.
Would have loved to see a few of the Lockheeds in the air together. I know some of the owners choose not to fly, but I also know the DAV B-25 puts on a fantastic solo demo flight, and form talking to them they wanted to but were not gives a slot.

I posted this after the 2012 show, and while 2013 was an improvement, 2014 was a step back:
I feel the warbird shows have gotten kind of stale. Single P-51's doing flat laps for 10 minutes...the B-25's flying high and above the crowd while the O-birds circle on stage center.
Oshkosh brings a large array of aircraft together one time a year, and the air show would be a great place to showcase this. I offer some possible ideas for improvement:

~We had three great versions of tri-motors on the field, Junkers, Stinson, Ford. How cool would a three ship pass from those be?
~There were at least five P-40's on the field. What would it take to get a five ship pass from them?
~How about a tail chase of the A-36 to P-51D progression, going from A-36 to 51A, B, C and D? The planes where there to do it.
~Hinton in the P-38 doing acro was awesome. More vintage solo acts would be great. How about the Horseman?
~Can the tail chase passes be a bit more animated? Some curving passes that show the tops and bottoms of the wings, not just a profile? (More Max Hoffman-ish of you will)
~Really missed seeing FIFI depart and return from Wittman. It would have been nice to see a B-17 in the show.
~I would love for the EAA warbird show to look a bit more like the Legends show at Duxford. No reason it cannot. This 2 minute clip is exactly what I wish the show organizers would plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCja_syG3uk

[krw920]

T-6's to me have never meant warbirds. Yes, they flew during war time, but to train, a very important role during the war not be discounted. But Warbirds are warrior aircraft, not trainers in my opinion, others may disagree.

And if you are going to have them in the show, flying them over in formation at 6,000 feet repeatedly really doesn't do much for me, bring them down where people can actually see them!

So if you are going to label it an "extravaganza" it really should be and extravaganza, and that I can say with ease it wasn't.

[flyboycpa]

I had a great 5 and a half days at Oshkosh, Sunday to Friday morning. Great turnout of aircraft, although the warbirds were a bit down and met up with many many friends, always great time.
But as is often the case (think this was my 28th Oshkosh) the biggest disappointment and frustration is the airshow. It seems to me that far too much emphasis is given to the established airshow acts or sponsors aircraft, but not to what is unique to Oshkosh, the interesting aircraft that the members bring. The airshow is also too long with too many aerobatic acts all very similar that go on for ages.

Most frustrating was the GeeBee QED, to many the highlight of Oshkosh this year, they only flew one day (perhaps their choice) but then just took off, did one pass (which was great for photos thanks) and then landed on 27 rather than 36 infront of us, I don't think that was their choice, the wind was very light. I imagine it was due to the airboss who wanted the next act on the runway. The next act was yet another aerobatic act (Orange CAP/Extra etc) which had at least twice the time the GeeBee did. Surely the GeeBee could have done 3 or 4 passes, even if they were fairly straight and level, much more interesting to see. Earlier a BD5 variant had done 10 or more very similar mildly aerobatic passes, taking a lot of time, but they were an established act with sponors I guess.
We even had the TBM900 doing a much longer display, of little interest to most people, but a sponsor, so I guess that is why they get a longer timeslot.
Similarly the Fairey Gannet only did one pass and then landed, at least on 36.

I did like the Breezy fly-bys this was probably the highlight of the airshow, but again they could have flown by more than once, as could the homebuilts in the homebuilt review.
The vintage review was a big disappointment, seeing this on the list earlier in the week I was hoping we were going to return to the good old days of the Vintage parade of flight which lasted 30-40 minutes and featured many vintage aircraft. This year we could have had some good choices with the Lockheed 12s, Fairchild 71s, Vega, Travelair D4D, Travelair B14, Staggerwings, Howards, Wacos etc. But then saw it was only 15 minutes! And even more disappointed when we saw just 5 or 6 Classics were to take part! We really need to make more effort to try to get some of the more interesting vintage aircraft flying in the show. Obviously some owners don't want to fly, but surely some do.

The warbird shows are also particularly frustrating. Monday as we wanted to see the Gannet, we stood by 18/36 and waited for the warbird arrivals, they came in their formations,quite a few high flybys and a couple of lower fly bys, then started to break off to land. Now time for some good landing photos we thought!! But, no, they all landed on 27! Wind wasn't a factor and for the first 10 minutes of them landing there wasn't anything happening on 18/36 at all, just the announcer continuing his talking. Even when something did happen it was just yet another aerobatic act. Surely it would be much more interesting for the crowd to watch the warbirds land. Tuesday we stood by 27 at the end of the warbirds and had a much better show with nearly everything landing infront of us, the added bonus here being well away from the speakers, so we could hear the aircraft rather than the announcers.

Ive long found the style of the warbird show disappointing, the big formations of trainers are OK, but cant they do anything else (of course the Trojan Horsemen are a notable exception) The liaison/trainers fly around in circles miles away, one close lower pass would be better! and then the fighters (Very few this year) also just do fast straight passes far away, pulling up at the end, then circle round and do the same thing again and again.
The one improvement this year was the formation of 4 T33s which were great to see. The next best "warbird show" were the 4 Stearmans who did 4 or 5 different formation passes down 27 during Friday morning.

I missed the "big" Friday warbird show as I had left by then, but a friend told me it was very poor with no fighters, the only bomber being an OV-1 and no Liaisons either, a lot less than Tuesday. We did notice many warbirds had left on Friday morning.

Perhaps someone needs to visit Duxford or La Ferte Alais in France to see what can be done for a warbird airshow, although at Oshkosh 2013 the Texas flying legend showed how it could be done.

As one of the pilots of the Fairchild 71 (Pan Am, blue and white one), we kept pushing to try to get our 71 and the other beautiful 71 (the maroon and white one) to fly a showcase to no avail. You would think with all the hype (we got a "special" invite to bring it to OSH…not that anyone needs one) that they would be begging us to do showcase flights. As you said, we had some wonderful aircraft that folks would have loved to have seen (Fairchild 71's, Gee Bee, Vega, etc.). Oh well.

Sam

[nigel hitchman]

Sam,
thank for your post and thank very much for brining that beautiful Farchild 71. To see the two Fairchild 71s in the air together would certainly have been one of the highlights of the week. Who are these people who decide what appears in the display and do they know anything about the real Oshkosh and the wonderful array of aircraft there that we could see fly, or are they just "airshow professionals" going from one show to the next, treating them all the same with the usual audiences that don't know much about aircraft and noise and smoke and shouting announcers are what really matters. Its not like that at Oshkosh and they need to be educated or removed.
Ive seen thousands of aerobatic displays at Oshkosh and elsewhere in 40 years of going to airshows, but Ive never seen a Fairchild 71 fly and I bet that is the same for most people there. Why do these organisers think we would rather see yet another aerobatic display than the unique sight of two Fairchild 71s???

On a more positive note, I did enjoy the Valdez STOL demonstrations one of the few highlights.

[jasstech]

I do love the aerobatic routines and enjoyed how they were split up. Aerobatic followed by formation flybys followed by more aerobatics etc. I definitely agree it would be awesome to have more unique aircraft showcased though. It would be great if they found a way to work that in.

[Jeff Boatright]

Well, maybe sailplane aerobatics are fun to watch.

I much prefer the unique planes in flybys.

[N222AB]

I almost never stay for the airshows anymore. I might casually watch one while sipping on a root beer float, but that's about it. How many lomcevaks and inverted flat spins do we really need to see in one afternoon? The warbird shows with various mostly unrelated types doing circuits at high speed aren't terribly interesting, especially when the "boom" part of the show sends black smoke west over the crowd. As others have mentioned, how about some fly-bys with some interesting types like the Fairchild 71s mentioned above. I remember many years ago of a pair of Constellations doing formation fly-bys and what a thrill it was to see that. It seems like the airshow folks have settled into a comfortable routine that isn't very interesting to those of us who have seen it before. I know the logistics of getting airplanes there and working up a show scenario must be difficult, but, I would hope more creativity would go into them. Do we really need multiple big name aerobatic pilots doing basically the same thing in the same show?

[Kyle Boatright]

I almost never stay for the airshows anymore. I might casually watch one while sipping on a root beer float, but that's about it. How many lomcevaks and inverted flat spins do we really need to see in one afternoon? The warbird shows with various mostly unrelated types doing circuits at high speed aren't terribly interesting, especially when the "boom" part of the show sends black smoke west over the crowd. As others have mentioned, how about some fly-bys with some interesting types like the Fairchild 71s mentioned above. I remember many years ago of a pair of Constellations doing formation fly-bys and what a thrill it was to see that. It seems like the airshow folks have settled into a comfortable routine that isn't very interesting to those of us who have seen it before. I know the logistics of getting airplanes there and working up a show scenario must be difficult, but, I would hope more creativity would go into them. Do we really need multiple big name aerobatic pilots doing basically the same thing in the same show?

Agree 100%. I don't even watch those acts anymore. In fact, I don't even set aside time for the airshows anymore. If there is an interesting act doing its thing, I'll stop what I'm doing and watch. This year, that was pretty much the Zero vs F4U act and the Osprey.

[L16 Pilot]

I'd have to agree with most of the statements above. I love the flybys of war birds, vintage, and anything with big radials. I guess the aerobatics are interesting to some folks but one routine doesn't seem much different from another in my uneducated mind.