FIFTY STATES    

A humble beginning over four and a half years ago for FLY-LOW has turned into a nationwide distributed publication and a website that gets almost 200,000 hits a month.  As of the July issue, we now send our publication to the major (and some minor) airports in all fifty states.  This has been my vision after the first six months we published.  I figured that if we could last six months, why not go nationwide?  Now we are. 

Our readership on the Internet extends worldwide.  Our subscribers to the hard copy issue extend out of the United States. 

The response and growth of FLY-LOW has pleased and surprised me.  March of 2006 will begin our sixth year.  WOW..!!!  I often think of a question asked by my graphics designer, Peggy Bowen.  She said, “Do you remember what you said when you hired me?”  I said, “NO!”  She relayed my words to me, “I am guaranteeing you three issues for sure.  The odds are that there will be no more than six issues of FLY-LOW if no one buys an ad.”   

She said, “Do you remember?”  I had to say, “Yes.”  She continued, “Do you realize that statement was made four years ago!”  And so it was….  Now it is closing in on the beginning of our sixth year.  Go figure.

“TIMES THEY ARE ACHANGING….”  NOT!!! 

I will say that if there’s a change that I feel strongly about at Oshkosh AirVenture it is the aerobatic performers.  Most all of them are extremely well known and polished performers.  All of them put on their best aerobatic show and do it for free (or so I am told).  The unfortunate part is that most of them are the same performers each year.  There are some changes from year to year, but for the most part…. It is the same performers.  I would like to see some performers that are good, not as well know nationally at the 2006 air show.  I can name a dozen good, quality, high spirited performers that deserve a showing at the World’s Greatest Air Show.   

It is a bit disappointing to see the same group perform from year to year at AirVenture.  Come on - let’s make some changes up there in Oshkoshville.  Put me on the selection committee.  With seven shows during AirVenture each year, the number of performers could be fifty… not ten like it is now.  I imagine that to get the opportunity to perform at AirVenture is like “finding a needle in a hay stack.”  Impossible, to say the least.  I have spoken to a number of performers that have spent years in their attempt to get the opportunity to perform at OSH.  Why aren’t they given the chance to perform?  I don’t know. 

The critics will say that three young men were given the chance to perform at AirVenture 2005.  They sure were.  One was the son of a regular performer at AirVenture.  I am not saying that he wasn’t good, but all three of the “new” performers had strong connections to EAA.  What about the “Joe Smith” from Bungalow, Mississippi?  How does he get in with the in-crowd?  I would be interested to know.  As would those hundreds of other performers waiting in line. 

Truthfully, after the second air show of watching the same people perform for the second day, I got bored and left.  It is time for a change.  The one thing that is certain to keep life in an organization is the ability to change with the times.  And as the song says, “Times, they are a changing,”  but not at AirVenture.