Warbird Information Exchange

I was at Oshkosh on Wednesday and Thursday. During the portion of the airshow when the warbirds flew the majority of the warbirds did not fly during those days with a few exceptions. So if not then when did they fly was it Friday or Saturday? I remember back in 1995 when I was at Oshosh the greatest armada of aircraft that I ever saw in the airshows that I have attended was launched roughly 150 to maybe 170 aircraft in the air at the same time. Bombers including FiFi, fighters, trainers etc. nothing like that now.

Saturday

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Actually it has shifted in the past few years. The biggest day for numbers is now the Friday show. There were far more aircraft in the air on Friday.

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I thought it was earlierthis week, maybe wednesday?
There must be a shortage of warbirds, the Fighters on saturdays show were 4 P-51s and 4 T-28s. In fact, every time they had the fighters on parade, there were some T-28s mixed in. Earlier in the week they were parading the Yak, Helldiver, Ruff Stuff...

Thursday are traditionally the Warbirds "Forum Day", so very few warbirds fly on Thursday.

Friday is the big day. Saturday's show is short because of the evening show.

That said, there was a definite shortage of flying warbirds this year. There were plenty in attendance, but for whatever reason, they were pretty stingy flying 'em.

Im gonna guess there will be less and less warbirds seen at airshows and Air Venture in the coming years. One local owner owns a Stearman and he rarely takes it out of the T--hangar. Maybe once or twice a year. I've noticed a great reduction of trainers at airshows. Even Geneseo is seeing less. Because the old timers are moving on or are just being kept hangared unable to afford to fly them.

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I disagree. Saturday's "big show" had about 5-6 P-51s, 1 Corsair, 1 B-25, 6-7 T-28s (launched on 18 with the Mustangs and stuff)...this has become a joke.

In 4 days of "CoNA", I saw 1 FM-2, 2 Corsairs, 1 B-25 (painted as PBJ) and 1 Helldiver fly during the airshow representing WW2 "heavy iron". Oh, wait, the Helldiver and one Corsair were part of the Legacy Flight before the "official" airshow I believe...

Lots of parked warbirds, nearly 25 Mustangs (maybe 6 flew on any given day), 3 TBMs (none flew Wed-Saturday), 4 FM-2s I believe (1 launched one day, but didn't make passes because of a concern with the briefed display I hear), F8F (didn't fly with warbirds), F7F (didn't fly Wed-Sat), SBD (stayed at Fond Du Lac?), Duck, FW-190, Spit...nothing in the air during the shows over 4 days...

Man, it's embarrassing...

Rich

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Rich Kolasa
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I agree. I was disappointed in the flying activities at Oshkosh. The wife even mentioned something on the 9 hour drive back to Kansas City and she is not into aviation that much. I understand if the pilots do not want to fly because its money out of their pocket. But considering that EAA was making this a keynote event for CoNA then I think they should have done more to get the pilots flying the aircraft. I only really saw one Corsair on Friday with a half dozen T-28's representing the Navy. Then on Saturday the Legacy flight with the Helldiver and the F-18 and only T-28's and Devil Dog during the show. Why not have a large Navy flight with current and former Navy aircraft? Why not have an F-18 demo along with the Harrier? Why not have amphibious beach assault? There was so much that could have been done. I didn't even see a Navy recruiter at the show. I remember when the USAF celebrated their 40th at Oshkosh they bought all kinds of neat stuff to show. The best thing I remember was a large box that you could go into and play with NVG's. Maybe the Blue Angels homecoming will be better.

Kevin

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Kevin Orr
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