It seemed to me that attendance of airplanes and maybe people at Oshkosh this year was fairly full and busy, just an impression without many numbers, just looking a plane parking areas, waiting lines for food and tables at lunch, rides on the trams, buses etc. and it seems somewhat busy as for as jet traffic at some locations.
I know Bill Fisher mentioned warbird registration was up a bit over last year, don't know how it compares with peak years.
What was your impression of attendance ?
Busy but didn't see much difference from prior years...
Glenn Brasch
KRYN Tucson, Arizona
2013 RV-9A
Medevac helicopter pilot (Ret)
EAA member since 1980
Owner, "Airport Courtesy Cars" website.
www.airportcourtesycars.com
Volunteer Mentor www.SoAZTeenAviation.org
I agree with Glenn's assessment but really between Sunday and Wednesday I was so overheated from the oppressive humidity, I was only looking down the openings of water bottles.
The EAA AirVenture page reports that the preliminary figures say attendance was up across the board. Warbirds participation, at 397 registered aircraft, is up 10pct from last year. On Tuesday, ATIS was saying that there was no more room for twins. When I left Wednesday afternoon, ATIS said there was no more room for any newly arriving aircraft except for showplanes. That sure sounds like a crowd to me! Now, how that related to improved economic activity is another matter.
Just a thought, but Avgas is less expensive this year. That might have helped.
We got back some additional parking (lost previously to the blasted perimeter road) and it was still more crowded.
As a tram driver I definitely saw an increase in riders, had extra trams going to keep up with them and as an airplane greeter in afternoons, we were helping park planes on north forty where I don t think planes had been parked before thanks to construction. So IMHO, it looked like an increase. Even parked planes in RV parking area that weren t RVs
I'd be interested in knowing how many planes get diverted to reliever airports because parking fills up? Fly-in airplanes (all types) should reclaim some of the real estate now being wasted on non-airplane purposes!!
As for reliever airports, FLD was pretty full, just a guess 75 percent, lots of campers also . Didn't see Appleton
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