AirVenture 2022 - The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[RhinoIA]

I'm a little more focused on the air show part of Airventure, so my comments may be a bit weighted towards that end, but here we go:

The Good
The MiG-29 and Polaris demo
The United 777 demo early in the week
F-35C and Growler teams (these made up for the lack of USAF participation, more on that below)
Express camping entry
The volunteers in Vintage are the best group and we love sitting to watch the shows in that area.

The bad
Scholler really needs some love and attention:

The shower houses that AREN'T the one at the South end on Stits. They have needed an upgrade years ago and they are continually getting worse.

After the Saturday night storm and deluge, many of the roads west of Stits became mud holes. It seems if you were east of Stits the areas were rolled dry, but there were many areas west that were just left muddy and wet with huge ruts.

The cell service is atttrocious for all providers. If the providers aren't going to help out, build out a bigger wifi infrastructure.


It seems like there was a huge increase in golf cart traffic on the grounds inside the gates. I can't count how many times I saw an exhibitor almost ran people over.

Can we get the airshows to start earlier? I can understand the argument that earlier in the week, a 2:30 start time helps get arrivals in, but I think later in the week you could easily start at 11 or Noon and have the shows done by 4. This would allow people to go back to camp, eat, refresh, then come back for evening events such as the STOL field, movie, Theater in the Woods, etc.

Ugly
Whoo boy. The airshows. So much of what was advertised, promised, hyped, etc. simply didn't happen, along with the absolutely anemic participation of USAF assets.

The F-100 didn't make it, with several reputable sources saying that the owner was upset that EAA only scheduled him to fly ONCE during the entire week. The F-100 was prominently featured on several items of merchandise and posters/etc. Not a good look, EAA.

The USAF Aggressors from Nellis were a no-show, after being continuously hyped during pre-show webinars. With Red Flag happening and scheduled during the same week, how was that ever going to happen?

The warbirds shows were pretty bare, with Friday and Saturday particularly being bad. These, again, were hyped during pre-show webinars. They simply didn't live up.