Everything Went Wrong – And It Was Still Good

Our local airport held its annual Airport Day the other day. I have been excited about this for several months now, especially since I was helping to plan this upcoming event. If you read my blog entries you know I have enjoyed these events in the past. With the opportunity to help plan this event really added to my enjoyment for this year.

Our planning committee continues to work hard at changing Airport Day from a day at the airport watching airplanes and getting airplane rides into a full scale air show complete with performing aircraft. This year is the first step by having an aircraft acrobatic club come down and perform a practice competition. This will not be a full air show but it will be aircraft doing acrobatic routines to enjoy. So we planned and planned and our planning appeared to be going good.

Unfortunately there was only one person we could not plan on, Mother Nature. She decided we should have 20+ mph winds at the airport. Where the acrobatic planes were coming from she provided low clouds and coming rains. Due to the weather at their departing airport, the acrobatic planes could get here but they could not get back home so they had to cancel.

So, with our acrobatic competition cancelled; the high winds canceling our skydivers, our Ultralight aircraft flights and our Radio Controlled Aircraft flights; we wondered how the attendees to our Airport Day would respond do all of these lost events. And we were surprised.

Many of the people showing up understood the weather problem yet they remained and explored our other offerings. They attended our sessions with our NASA speaker talking about flight from the Wright Brothers to space and beyond. They looked at the dozen or so airplanes on display and they took airplane rides all day long well beyond the times published. And they ate all the food we cooked and explored the rest of the airport.

We estimated that we had more that 1,000 people attend, and we considered that a success despite all the cancelled events. I should point out that the proceeds of the airplane rides and food sales go to help the airport pilots association improve the airport. The airport association has already done a lot to help furnish the airports new pilot lounge, briefing room and training room.

We hope to make our airport a rest stop of choice for small planes flying back and forth across the country. Most small airplanes that travel hundreds of miles need to stop, refuel and take a break now and then. With out proximity to two large metropolitan areas where small planes many times prefer to stay away from on long cross country flights, we hope to attract them to stop here. Just as the ground traveling public likes to stop at a clean and nice rest stop, we want our airport to be that rest stop for pilots.

During our Airport Day I was expected to fly my Ultralight with a few other pilots to entertain the crowd. After that I was expected to fly my radio controlled model airplanes to entertain the crowd. The high winds prevented both activities.

Beyond my expected flight performances I was responsible for crowd control and parking. With volunteers helping with the parking we kept the vehicles neatly parked and under control. I spent most of the day riding back and forth on a scooter running up and down on the flight line to insure people stayed within the barriers and away from operating aircraft, and then off to the parking lots to check on my crews directly the parking cars (which was going very smoothly, my thanks to the volunteers).

I can say I had fun. I did not get to fly, but I can fly most other days. I did get sunburned despite the large application of sunscreen, but that was only minor in some small spots I missed with the goop.

I call Airport Day a success even with the weather cancellations. We are already talking about next year and the year after that. We hope to have more to offer.

Fly Safe!