Arlington lays some eggs

This will be a negative post, but hopefully, constructive criticism. I've
been to Oshkosh once, lots of small fly-ins, and every year for the past
eight years to the Arlington Fly-In (www.nweaa.org). Oshkosh is SO big, it
is difficult to take away a lot of lessons that are applicable to smaller
fly-ins, but I regard Arlington as the way things should be done. Not this
year. This year I spent a lot of time building up Arlington to the
non-aviation people I work with, and hopefully, several of them attended. I
hope they weren't disappointed. Below I've listed some of my observations.

1. Where were the signs? Maybe the person that puts up the signs on the
freeway and all the intersections on the way over-slept. But on my way in,
the normal signs weren't there. I even missed a turn and had to backtrack a
mile or so.

2. I got there about 30 minutes after the gates opened on Saturday, and
there were less cars than when I normally get there 15 minutes before the
gates opened.

3, Walked through the gates, and "Where are the Warbirds???" Last year,
the Warbirds and Arlington had a public falling out, but supposedly had made
up. I guess someone forgot to tell the Warbirds. I hadn't realized it, but
the WWII "stagedoor canteen" display was put on by the warbirds folks, and a
lot of people noticed it wasn't there. (I guess it wasn't there last year
either, and I didn't notice?)

4. Noticed a lot of empty airplane spaces. Was told that they had been
occupied on Friday, but that those airplanes had already left. I don't know
if in previous years the closer spots were allocated to planes that were
going to be there for a longer period of time or what. Maybe they
back-filled those spots when the previous airplanes left. Maybe it was
just luck. But it makes a bad impression when the spaces closest to the
public are largely empty.

5. Where was the Civil Air Patrol??? Normally, there are about 180-200
Cadets in attendance, doing outstanding duty. One of the Senior members
told me that he showed up and was shocked to not find any Cadets. Someone
else told me that it was a known thing that Cadets wouldn't be there. About
17 Cadets were there, but it was a disaster. The Arlington organizers went
nuts trying to find any warm bodies to backfill, but it was a losing
proposition. Those volunteers in attendance did a yeoman's duty, but were
over-whelmed.

6. Information was hard to obtain. Were the winds too high for a balloon
glow or not?

7. I don't know the attendance figures (it did pick up quite a bit on
Saturday afternoon), but several exhibitors said their foot traffic was down
by 50% from last year.

8. The exhibition tent was HOT, and the tables weren't being manned with
any regularity. This isn't the organizers fault; exhibitors, if you are
going to spend the money for space, make sure someone is there the whole
time! If you can't tag team and have to take a break, leave a sign that
says when you'll be back, not "Back in 15 minutes", because the shoppers
won't know when the 15 minutes started. This applies to the exhibitors
outside the tent, too.

9. Not everything was negative. The food was great as always (but a little
more expensive, I think). The shuttles were running all the time. The
antique tractor people were there with a good display, as always. Good
airshow. Good runway movies, which leads to #10 below.

10. The runway movie on Saturday night was "One Six Right". Good movie,
also a good movie for boring the kids to sleep! One thing that was stressed
over and over again in the movie was the need for aviation people to involve
non-aviation people. Aviation people talk to each other about how great
aviation is, but their outreach to others is very poor. This is biggest
problem I saw this year. There were radio commercials, but the url they
gave to get more information was long, I couldn't remember it. The
newspaper "things to do this weekend" didn't list the Fly-In. (I have a pet
peeve against the term "fly-in" itself; why would a non-aviation person be
interested in a fly-in? I much prefer the terms "aviation fair", "aviation
celebration", "air fair", "air show", etc.) If I was going for the first
time, I don't know how long it would have taken me to find it; the first
time I went (1998?), there were lots of signs, it would have been impossible
NOT to find it.

Arlington is planning on building a convention center, which will cause the
destruction of many hangers (they will be replaced), and I think this
contributed to "taking their eyes off the ball" and letting the fly-in
proceed on momentum. In the past years, Arlington has gotten better with
each year; not this year. A fly-in (sic) is an organic thing, and it needs
constant care and nurturing or it will decline. I hope this was just a one
year thing, and that next year will be the biggest and best yet. AND FOR
HEAVEN'S SAKE, GET THE CIVIL AIR PATROL BACK!!!