On 14 Jul 2006 11:40:30 -0700, wrote:


Ron Wanttaja wrote:
Speaking for myself, I enjoy watching the warbirds fly, but I wouldn't make my
go/no-go decision based on their presence. I'd heard the warbirders wanted
their gas and hotel expenses paid for by the fly-in, though I'm VERY skeptical
about the posted claim that the bill would have been over a million dollars.


I'm an idiot... FIVE figures... not seven... Sorry about that typo.

You must be an estimator at Boeing. :-)

Still. Geeze, if I owned a P-51 or something, I'd want to show it off. I'd
take it to the Fly-In and just park the sucker for the weekend and watch the
crowds ogle it. I've gotta fly it *anyway*, why not just bring it to the local
fly-in? Sit in a lawn chair and listen for folks oohhh and ahhh over it.

One would think that is the case. But in all the years I've been going
to Arlington, I never once, not one single time, was able to shoot the
bull with one of the warbird owners there. They park and disappear,
seemingly not wanting to be bothered by the masses.

I guess rich people *are* different from us, after all.

I never lured any more Fly Babies to us...but then, those two open spots were
never filled, anyway. That had *never* happened before; the row always was
filled by Friday noon. What's more, this "homebuilt" row had two later-model
Cessnas parked in it!

The problem here is two fold:

1. People arriving in dissimilar aircraft wishing to camp together.
2. Aircraft parking doesn't have people that really recognize the
difference in airplanes.

Cough, they can't tell a Cessna 172 from a homebuilt?

I'm suspecting #1 was true in the case of the 172. But still, on a busy
weekend, that might mean a guy with a homebuilt has to go park in Jerry
Springer's penalty box behind the Blackjack corral. Hardly seems fair...if the
172 wants to camp with his homebuilt, let them both go to the spamcan row to
park.

I think this was mainly due to no-shows. The idea was to have a lineup
of LSA's for prospective buyers to 'test fit' one right after another
without being bothered by salespeople. Thereafter, they can go to the
booths in the vendor area of the airplane(s) they wanted more info
about.

In excecution, didn't quite work out this year....

Live and learn, I guess. Ain'cha lucky we're all giving you advice for next
year? :-)

Ron Wanttaja