Hi Peter. I’m sorry to hear you won’t be joining us this year. I’ve attended and volunteered at every Airventure since 1987. It takes a solid day of flogging my old, over-gross C172 to get there; but that’s a mere pittance to what it costs you to attend.
One of the best things I got from Airventure was meeting an Aussie (Mal Shipton), He ran an “aerial tours for pilots” outfit out of Redcliffe. After a morning briefing on airspace and procedural differences, we went out to the ramp and picked out which Skyhawk we each wanted to fly. Each couple got their own plane (with that day’s destination programmed into a L-R GPS) and an admonishment to get there before we ran out of petrol, or the airport van left to take everyone to lunch and whatever uniquely Aussie experiences were to be had there. (Who knew you had camel ranches?) Other than that, our flightplan was totally at our discretion. The things we saw, but primarily, the amazing people we met in our tour of the outback half of your continent, made a lasting impression. And of course, as soon as we returned, all our pilot friends wanted to know why we didn’t let them know, so they could have joined us.
A few years later, Mal’s wife got sick, and he announced that he was shutting down the operation. So I told all my friends who missed our first tour, and we booked-up the entire last tour. It was quite literally the grandest adventure of my life, which has not been without its share of excitement.
After the election, we started looking at immigrating to Oz. At the rate things are spiraling here, it’s entirely possible that it will be our last chance.