EAA AirVenture has been the world’s aviation showcase for years, but in recent years the big companies especially have ramped up the showmanship. Last year, for instance, Cessna surprised everyone with a flyby of its proof-of-concept next generation piston aircraft while the media and public were poring over the company’s proposed entry in the light sport category. This year, Cessna sealed the LSA deal with a splashy press conference on Sunday. This year at AirVenture, Cirrus is unveiling its “big surprise” on Monday morning. Now it’s natural for us to assume that it has something to do with its personal jet, and media types have been busy the last week busy analyzing every word spoken in reference to Cirrus’s surprise announcement a month ago that it wasn’t bringing its jet mock-up to Oshkosh (key word, mock-up). Whatever Cirrus ultimately reveals on Monday, there’ll be plenty of other new product announcements this week and they start on Monday with first appearances by several aircraft.
Epic’s new single- and twin-engine jets will arrive at Aeroshell Square and Diamond will show off its DA50 Super Star. Rotorway will give us details on its entry to the certified helicopter market after decades as a kitbuilder and there might be a third incarnation of Symphony, as the company, which went bankrupt in Canada earlier this year, holds a news conference on Monday. Several well established projects will be making first appearances at the show.
Grob’s SPN business jet mock-up is here and so is the Bell/Agusta BA609 civil tiltrotor. Expedition Aircraft’s rugged looking bushplanes made their entrance on Sunday. And it looks like AirVenture has been rediscovered by pilots. Fly-in parking areas were already almost full by Sunday and the aircraft just keep coming.
