Randolph AFB 2011

[RyanShort1]

That was a good looking PT-19 parked next to you Karen,.............know who it belongs to?

I believe that was one of the planes from RGV Wing or down that way. But I may be wrong.

Were there two PT-19s at the show? I know the one near me was from Houston.

Ryan

[RyanShort1]

It was a GREAT show from my perspective also. I'm so glad we could have a really superb Vietnam Demo to end a year with a bit controversy in that area. I'm told from those on the ground that it really looked great with so many different aircraft in the air and once again wonderful pyro from the Blastards.

I should modify my comments a bit...

It WAS great to see the Vietnam act, and several folks I talked to personally were very happy about it. I also enjoyed seeing Kent Pietsch's act and even the other acro guys were good. The things that were odd were all from my perspective with the statics.

It's interesting how you see the military bunch having the same issues over and over at airshows - due I guess to the fact that you never have the same bunch running things from show to show. Someone needs to write a book called 'How To Have A Successful Airshow - For Military Coordinators', including a workbook, and distribute it to all bases in the US for each upcoming show season. It would be nice if 'lessons learned' would benefit the next guys down the line, instead of being forgotten on Monday after the show!

This is what I was talking about. Some of my flight school customers were at the show and they universally had issues with the logistics of transportation, etc. including a two mile line still waiting to get in the gate near the time when the gates closed from what I heard. There are challenges with the show layout, but nothing that could not have been anticipated from two years ago. I also found it VERY odd that even with a few significant cancellations (GG had an engine issue and was not present and a few other aircraft were no-shows) there were basically no static aircraft, trinket vendors, or even recruiters, near show center or moved to show center to replace any possible no-shows - only food vendors. At the same time, a large portion of the statics were rather far away from the actual showline.
I don't really fault the guys running the show since I suspect it was their first attempt, but I don't think they had a clear vision of making it a good "customer" experience or for that matter, a recruiting effort...
I will say that my POC personally did a great job, but I think that the show in general wasn't nearly as good as it's potential.

Ryan

[Liberator]

Thanks Rick will do.

Do you know where i could get some high quality good images as well for the article of your A-4 Skyhawk?

Phil

[67Cougar]

Ryan, agreed. I left after Gumby flew Heritage on Sunday, to begin the drive home. There was a mile long backup of cars waiting to get into the main gate. The problem was, the main gate was not open to civilian traffic, visitors were supposed to go to the East gate. Of course, no one in the cars found that out until they had been sitting for an hour or more. That parking scheme has been used by Randolph for years, and it always creates a mess. The Randolph layout is challenging. All of the military statics and a good portion of the warbird statics were on the south ramp, while the fliers and a few other warbirds were on the west ramp. And, the flying aircraft, except for the Blues, were on the north end of the west ramp, far away from the crowd, and out of sight. Heck, it was about a mile from where we were parked with the P-47 to show center. It's just not a very good layout to run a show from - almost two seperate shows going on at the same time.

The military folks who ran it did the best they could, and from what I saw, bent over backwards for us. Their effort wasn't lacking. What was lacking was knowledge from the start. They had to learn a lot of lessons along the way, lessons that have been learned countless times before. You have shows at active duty bases two years apart, pretty much guaranteeing that the folks who did the 2009 show were not involved with the 2011 show, and so on. It's the little things, like making sure the list of folks who are authorized to get on base for the acts is up to date and complete ... making sure the right kind and quantity of oil is available ... AVGAS??? What's that? ... crowd control - spinning props don't need a bunch of unescorted kids walking around them - GET OFF THAT AIRPLANE! ...

All in all, though, it was a good weekend!