Participants Will Be Able To Fly Their Planes For The
Crowd
After having just spent
a week covering the annual Sun 'N Fun Fly-In in Florida's
sweltering heat -- and with Oshkosh's equally intense summertime
heat (or cold... or rain... ya gotta love Wisconsin in July) on the
horizon -- ANN staffers all for the idea of a "cooler" kind
of airshow. And the organizers of the 34th Annual Copperstate
Fly-In are doing something about it.
Those organizers know something about heat, too, as in the past
the show has been held towards the beginning of
October in Arizona, when average temperatures STILL can hover
near the century mark. After enduring heat that made even Arizona
natives cringe, however, the Southwest’s premier aviation
event has changed its dates to the cooler end of October -- opening
on Thursday, October 26 and running through Sunday, October
29.
While the whims of the weather gods can’t be anticipated
with accuracy, statistically things are looking good: according to
the National Weather service, the average high temperature during
the event should drop to a balmy 80 degrees -- a full 12 degrees
cooler than past events. Combined with the usual blue skies, it
should be perfect weather for wandering the rows of antique,
classic, and homebuilt aircraft, not to mention the opportunity to
peruse the latest offerings from the wide variety of aviation
vendors.
It’s not only the date and weather changing for this
year’s event, though. For the first time, showgoers will not
only have the opportunity to see the stunning airplanes displayed
on the ground, but they’ll also have the chance to see (and
hear) those same airplanes in the air. Copperstate is issuing an
invitation to builders, restorers, and pilots to show off their
creations in front of the crowd, during dedicated air time segments
specifically set aside for that purpose.
For the first time this year, rather than the traditional daily
aerobatic air show that closes the airport for hours at a time
(often playing havoc with flight schedules of Fly-In attendees),
the airplanes that make up the show on the ground will also make up
the show in the air. Rather than simple static displays of all the
gorgeous airplanes that attend the event, Copperstate volunteers --
in cooperation with the FAA Flight Standards District Office and
FAA Tower official -- have developed a program that will not only
keep the airport open, all day, every day, but which will give
virtually every Fly-In participant the chance to fly in front of
the crowd.
During certain portions of each hour, the airspace over the
runway will be reserved to showcase a preplanned and scheduled
aerial demonstration -- not by professional air show performers,
but by our own attendees, ranging from manufacturer demonstrations,
to mass flights of the latest Light Sport Aircraft, to a Parade of
Flight from the oldest airplane on the airport to the newest.
The 2006 event will again be held at Casa Grande Municipal
Airport (CGZ), located midway between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona,
just a few miles west of Interstate 10.