“This year was the best ever EAA AirVenture,” noted EAA President Tom Poberezny on Sunday afternoon, just hours before the airshow came to an official close. “I say this because there was an upbeat attitude this year, plenty of innovation and technology announcements and several new aircraft unveiled during the event.” He added that the last day “is sad because those who have come to visit the show really don’t want to leave, nor do those running the show want to see them leave.”
Preliminary data shows that the numbers are up this year. There were 2,617 showplanes for judging; broken down by category this includes 985 homebuilts, 1,014 vintage airplanes, 365 warbirds, 136 ultralights and 117 seaplanes. While no attendee estimate is yet available, there were 784 exhibitors, 40,000 campers (EAA spokesman Dick Knapinski joked that all of them were happy ones) and nearly 900 members of the media representing about 375 outlets.
According to Poberezny, AirVenture has outgrown the current site, prompting plans for expansion of the show grounds. “We will announce plans in the fall to start an expansion project using about 200 acres of adjacent land that EAA owns,” he said. “The project will start next year and will take between three and five years to complete.” While the show grounds will be bigger, “the culture will remain the same,” Poberezny promised.
