davidgsteadman/Flickr Creative Commons
Now that summer is truly here, it’s air show season! You may not realize, but air shows attract more spectators than pro baseball, football, basketball and NASCAR! Average air show attendance of the more than 400 air shows in North America is between 15 and 17 million. So I thought we’d talk about where some of the truly amazing air shows are, when they are, and why they’d make a great destination for you and your RV.
The biggest and most famous-est air show in America has got to be Oshkosh. It’s full name is “EAA AIrventure Oshkosh” but most folks drop all that down to just Oshkosh. And you guessed it, it’s in Oshkosh, WI. The EAA is the Experimental Aviation Association, a group of aviation enthusiasts who enjoy building aircraft at home and pushing the boundaries of efficiency and capability of small, amateur built aircraft. They play host to one of the largest, most exciting air shows in America. Several hundred thousand people converge on Oshkosh for the week and all the biggest, best, and most recently restored aircraft do their best to make their public debut at Oshkosh. The air show usually runs in July.
Sun N Fun is a “Fly-In” based in Lakeland, FL and is held during the spring, April to be more precise. Lakeland, FL is between Tampa and Orlando on I-4. The Fly-In is a gathering of pilots, mechanics, vendors, and aviation enthusiasts who get together once a year to fly together, look at all the new airplanes, all the newly restored antique and warbird aircraft and generally enjoy a feeling of camaraderie and fun in Florida.
Houston of course has it’s own air show in October at Ellington Field down by NASA on I-45 between Houston and Galveston. It’s appropriately named “Wings Over Houston” and features restored WWII airplanes flown and maintained by the Confederate Air Force as well as Lone Star Flight Museum. It also hosts some more modern NASA training aircraft and military airplanes.