Credit Card Processing Outage
2009-07-03
The operations of the Credit Card Gateway Company, Authorize.net, which ICAS uses to process credit cards, have been suspended due to a fire in their data center. Members trying to register for the ICAS convention have been experiencing failures in the registration process. This has absolutely nothing to do with the eCommerce functions of the ICAS database and website. We will continue to monitor the situation and will remove this message when Authorize.net has restored service.
Air Show Attendance Continues to Defy Economic Conditions
2009-07-02
Two months into the heart of the 2009 air show season, the industry continues to witness a trend first recognized last summer when air shows collectively saw a 10-15 percent increase in spectator attendance compared with 2007. Across the board, air shows are reporting strong attendance, with many seeing all-time record attendance.
“Every week, we hear from more shows who have been challenged to deal with overflowing crowds and also from performers who have never seen such large crowds at specific venues,” said John Cudahy, president of the International Council of Air Shows. “I’ve worked at ICAS for 12 years and this is a phenomenon I’ve never seen. At this point, we’re thinking we’ll have an overall increase approaching 20 percent compared to last year. When you look at all the empty seats at baseball games or at NASCAR races, it’s quite a contrast.”
Jim Breen is president of the California-based Umbrella Entertainment Group, which works with 20 air shows each year and says he has never seen such consistent attendance increases across the board. “There are some outlier shows where the attendance is really off the charts,” he said, “but when you pull those out, it still looks like everything else is up about 13 percent on average.” Breen singled out shows at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, NAS New Orleans, and Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, DC as examples of shows that have hosted record or near-record crowds during the last several weeks.
Talk to more air show professionals and you’ll hear similar stories…
“We had the largest show we’ve had since I’ve been involved, which is since 1999,” said Rebecca March, Manager of the NAS Patuxent River Air Show, held May 23-24 in Maryland. “We had more than a 10 percent increase over 2008. We expected a good turnout, but this many people was a very pleasant surprise.”
“With total attendance in excess of 70,000, this was our largest show in the 18-year history of the event,” said Colonel Larry Gallogly with the Rhode Island National Guard Air Show in North Kingstown, Rhode Island on June 27 and 28. “We used every parking spot available to us and put more spectators on the ramp than we ever have before.”
“We were expecting lower attendance than last year because of a bad weather forecast for Saturday and Sunday,” said George Gorman, Manager of the New York Air Show at Jones Beach, held May 23-24. “Instead, we had a total of 407,000 spectators, and that even was with fog that delayed the Sunday show for 2-1/2 hours and a major traffic snarl on the east part of Long Island. We were barely off our all-time record, which is amazing considering everything that was working against us.”
“We expected between 32,000 and 34,000 spectators for the entire weekend,” said Major Doug Bodine, director of the Ellsworth Air Force Base Air Show near Rapid City, South Dakota, held May 30-31. “We had more than that by the end of Saturday and finished the show on Sunday with total attendance of 51,200…our largest air show ever.”
Cudahy and others cite the relative value of an air show compared with the cost of other entertainment options such as a trip to an amusement park or a professional sporting event. “What’s great about an air show,” he said, “is that a family of four would be hard-pressed to spend anything more than 50 or 60 dollars, whereas they’re easily dropping three or four times that amount at an amusement park or a professional baseball game. And they’re getting a product that the kids will remember forever. It only makes sense that air shows would see an attendance surge in a bad economy, but this defies even our most optimistic projections.”
Goulian to Receive Bill Barber Award
2009-06-30
ICAS member and veteran air show performer Michael Goulian has been named as the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Bill Barber Award for Showmanship. The award presentation will take place on Monday, July 27 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in conjunction with EAA AirVenture.
Goulian, who has been flying air shows and competitive aerobatics since he was a teenager, was recognized for his talent as an aerial entertainer, for his longstanding commitment to air show professionalism, and for the professional agility he has demonstrated as an air show pilot, world-class aerobatic competitor and Red Bull Air Race competitor.
The Barber Award is presented each year by the publishers of World Air Show News and the friends of air show legend Bill Barber to recognize innovation and achievement in air show showmanship. Past recipients include Pietsch Airshows, the AeroShell Aerobatic Team, John Mohr, Patty Wagstaff, Bob Hoover, Sean Tucker, Julie Clark, Jim LeRoy, Bob Hoover, Gene Soucy, Bud Granley, and Leo Loudenslager.
Snowbirds Operational Pause Lifted
2009-06-19
The operational pause placed on the Canadian Forces Snowbirds has been lifted, according to a press release issued by the Canadian military this afternoon.
All lap belts in the team's CT-114 Tutor jets will be overhauled and tested via non-destructive means to ensure serviceability. Individual aircraft will be returned to service once the overhauled lap belts have been installed and tested.
The operational pause, implemented on June 12 as a safety precaution, ordered that all flying operations cease until an assessment of overall fleet safety impacts could be completed.
If no further problems are identified, the Snowbirds will be cleared to fly as soon as the requisite overhaul and testing of the seat belts is complete.
Indy Offers Free Tickets to Blood Donors
2009-06-19
For the third consecutive year, officials with the Indianapolis Air Show offered a free air show ticket to anybody who gave a pint of blood during a three-day period just prior to the June 6-7 event. In addition to encouraging blood donations during a particularly critical time for the Indianapolis area blood banks, the program generated additional ticket sales among those blood donors who attended the show using their free ticket and brought friends and family members who then bought their own tickets.
Each of six different blood donation centers are given a small supply of tickets and an information sheet that explains how to buy additional tickets on-line or on-site on show day. The blood center promotes the program with its own radio spots, providing additional publicity for the show. In each of the three years that the program has been run, blood donations have spiked and the air show promotion has outperformed similar promotions conducted by the blood donation center for other events with different organizations. On each day of the show, blood donors are saluted for their donation by the announcer over the public address system.
Blue Angels to Move to Two-Year Schedule Cycle Effective Next Year
2009-06-17
To provide air shows with additional time to plan their events, the United States Navy Blue Angels will move to a two-year scheduling cycle beginning in 2010. Rather than the three to eleven months of advanced notice that air shows have had in the past, air shows will now know 15-23 months ahead of time that the team has committed to perform at a particular show on a particular date. The change was recently approved at the highest levels of the U.S. Navy leadership.
“Much of the feedback we had received from the air show industry was that the air shows in the early part of the season did not have time to plan for advertisements, logistics and sponsorships,” said Commander Greg McWherter, Blue Angels commanding officer and flight leader. “We hope the result of the two-year show schedule will be even higher quality shows that will draw even larger crowds.”
In the initial transition year, the Blue Angels will accept requests for support for both the 2010 and 2011 air show seasons. In December of 2009 at the annual ICAS Convention in Las Vegas, the team will announce both their 2010 and 2011 schedules. Thereafter, the team will release their newest schedule fifteen months before they fly their first show of that season. For example, the team will release their 2012 schedule at the ICAS Convention in December of 2010.
"We expect this to reduce or even eliminate some of the traditional scheduling issues that air shows have faced," said ICAS President John Cudahy. "We expect air shows to have an easier time securing corporate sponsorships. It will improve the effectiveness of each show's marketing efforts. It will even help the shows that don't get on the Blue Angels schedule because they'll now have that information much earlier so that they can pursue alternate plans."
Additional details on the administrative issues related to this new scheduling process will be released within the next few weeks. In the meantime, air shows interested in securing the Blue Angels in either 2010 or 2011 are encouraged to plan on submitting DD Form 2535 to the Navy not later than August 1 of this year.
Colbert Flies with Thunderbirds
2009-06-17
During the New York Air Show on Long Island over the Memorial Day weekend, comedian Stephen Colbert provided his Comedy Central television audience with a unique twist on the standard military jet team media ride.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Operation Iraqi Stephen - Fallback Position - Air Force Thunderbirds | ||||
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Bush 41 Jumps with Golden Knights
2009-06-17
In what has become a tradition for former President George H.W. Bush, the former World War II naval aviator celebrated his most recent birthday with a tandem parachute jump with the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team. The event took place in Kennebunkport, Maine at St. Ann's Episcopal Church, which is the same location where the former president's parents were married.
Family and friends gathered to observe the jump, looking skyward as the former president and his tandem master SFC Michael Elliott, made their descent toward the target area and a near-perfect, stand-up landing. All five of his children were present, including the 43rd President, George W. Bush.
"It was a great exhilarating feeling, I don't feel a day over 84," noted the President. "It sends a message around the globe you don't have to sit around just 'cause you're an old guy drooling. Get out and do something, get out and enjoy life," he added.
ASB Gets a Face-Lift
2009-06-17
AirShowBuzz recently become the only aviation website to offer a high definition video player on its site. This new feature allows users to turn their computer screen into a "virtual television" without interrupting viewing. It also allows individual videos to be "published" with any on-line or web-based social networking community. ICAS members can use this new feature to publicize their act or their show with the thousands of air show fans who visit www.asb.tv on a regular basis. Click on the image below to check it out.
Snowbirds on Operational Pause for Ejection Seat Issue
2009-06-15
According to multiple published media reports, the Canadian Forces Snowbirds are taking an “operational pause” until an issue with the ejection seats on the team’s CT-114 Tutor jets can be resolved. The team was preparing for its Friday practice show at the Bagotville International Air Show in Quebec when a pre-flight check identified the problem. The brief pause has been identified as a precautionary measure to ensure the team’s safety until an investigation by the Canadian Air Force’s director of flight safety can be completed.
The team did not fly at the Bagotville show. The next scheduled performance for the Snowbirds is a one-day show in Baddeck, Nova Scotia this Wednesday, followed by a weekend show on the 20th and 21st in St. Thomas, Ontario.
Paris Celebrates a Century of Air Shows This Week
2009-06-14
Despite widespread gloom within the aerospace industry, the Paris Air Show begins today, celebrating 100 years of air shows. Major aviation events throughout Europe are claiming the title of “first air show” in this centennial summer, but – whatever the merits of their individual claims – Paris seems to have won the title.
More aerospace trade show and exhibition than air show in the North American model, the biennial Paris Air Show focuses on aircraft sales and, during its 100 years of operation, has become an enormous and elaborate event. But, despite the centennial hype, this year’s show is likely to be one of the most subdued in recent memory with the current recession and this month’s Air France Airbus A330 accident putting a damper on the typically festive tone of this major aerospace event.
Raptor Pilot to Lead Thunderbirds in 2010 and 2011
2009-06-11
(From Air Force Magazine) Lieutenant Colonel Case Cunningham, currently director of operations for the 43rd Fighter Squadron, an F-22 Raptor training unit at Tyndall AFB in Florida, has been selected to lead the U.S.A.F. Thunderbirds Flight Demonstration Team during the 2010 and 2011 air show seasons. Case will begin training in the F-16 Viper later this year before assuming command of the Thunderbirds from Lieutenant Colonel Greg Thomas early next year.
