It’s sad to see fellow pilots behaving so blatantly irresponsibly. Particularly those pilots who have access to airplanes that they can fly to Oshkosh (I don’t know how far-reaching this “protest” is), which I assume for some is more than just a local flight to them.
I’m as disappointed as the next pilot that Airventure has been canceled this year (I already had in mind which events I was going to attend and was particularly looking forward to it this year, with my planning for it having started LAST summer when I wasn’t able to attend). But I also have a fair idea of what goes into planning something as large as Airventure, along with how much lead time is required. Even if it was 100% certain that covid would be completely gone by late-July (in fact, it’s 100% certain that it WON’T be gone by then), canceling still would have been the right thing to do because preparations would have had to begin during the middle of the spike in cases. And unlike other events, EAA actually waited as long as possible before canceling the event.
The worst part is, these “protestors” (and they’re not actually true protestors) are only going to increase the perception that all pilots are just spoiled rich brats who don’t care about others. People are out protesting actual social injustices, while a few spoiled pilots are out “protesting” that they’re upset covid forced a cancelation of their favorite social event.