Bill Greenwood wrote:
Pretty cool, Brad. I notice one of those 51s is a Spitfire, with WKC on it. Howard phoned me a few days ago to ask about our snowfall. He and Carolyn are coming up over Thanksgiving. I mentioned to him about all the recent photos posted and the positive comments about the shows at Breckenridge. I told him we should do it again, but he said he did not want to get into that. I think the big problem is sponsorship as well as hotel rooms. Every time someone sees him we should make the request. Does anybody else have an interest in having a real warbird show like these were and any suggestions where? I'd like to see a central location like Texas, a minimum of red tape and officials, no tower, plenty of flying, and a good party one night.
I always wanted to come up to Colorado and ski, but Idaho fits more into the budget of us Air Force guys. Plus, my brother and his family are up there and I can tie everything up with a visit to see how the Corsair is coming along. I'm not surprised that Howard doesn't want to put on another airshow. From his viewpoint, it's probably more trouble than it is worth. I've asked him about it several times over the years and I get about the same answer you did.
I think there is a real interest in bringing back the "Breckenridge" type airshow. Unfortunately I think the interest is mostly from the "spectator" standpoint. What I always thought made Breckenridge such a great show was the people. They brought planes from all over the country and Canada just to fly together. For the most part, at their own expense. As has been mentioned before, that was accomplished by Howards "I'll go to your show if you'll come to mine" way of doing airshows.
It's my opinion that the good old boy way of doing airshows is pretty much a thing of the past. With the operation costs of warbirds being what they are, people don't just take their planes across the country for free anymore. I know what it costs to own and operate these planes and I understand the position a lot of owners are in. All in all, I think it's a different breed of owner and operator nowadays. Some, like yourself, are still old school but it looks to me like very few still fall in that category.
Up at the Olympia show in Washington, we have tried to keep a pure warbird airshow going. We've been pretty successful. But, every year the cost goes up. Sponsorship waivers back and forth, maintenance and weather issues come into play, politics between organizations and owners show up and we even get the occasional upset hippie because we use the word "War" in warbird.
I believe most airshows can be made better by owners and airshow organizers scratching each others backs from time to time. Unfortunately, I see it less and less every year.
All that being said, if you want to throw an old school fly in, I'll be the first to volunteer to help! In the meantime, check your private messages.
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