I have had a great time meeting the airport tenants while going through the hangar inspection process. I was able to listen too many of you talk about how much you enjoy the airport newsletter and your ideas for future activities on the airport.

One of the questions that was discussed numerous times is, “will we ever see an airshow at the airport”? Well, the answer to that is yes. Not only airshows but other fun ideas that we would like to bring to the airport.

Prior to the pandemic, we had actually formed a committee to look at bringing various activities to the airport that would be fun for the community as a whole. We had come up with several ideas such as food truck Friday on a closed runway, movie night on a closed runway, and yes…even an airshow. As most know, I helped put on the Rome airshow when I was airport manager there. My last year there we were able to bring in the Blue Angels as a headliner. The airshow brought in over 100,000 people from around the world for the two-day event.

The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds require a large demonstration box to do their presentation and unfortunately our airport is too close in proximity to houses and businesses that would prevent them from coming. However, we are still able to have an airshow with a reduced aerobatic box that will allow other aerobatic aircraft, both civilian and military, to perform. We will also host numerous static displays of aircraft of all shapes and sizes, both military and civilian.

Although the COVID outbreak has put a delay in our plans for now, I feel confident that once things get back to some sort of normalcy, we will be looking to pick these plans back up and move forward with them. Please feel free to contact me with any ideas you may have that you think would be a good aviation related type activity to have at the airport.