By ANN Correspondent Rob Milford

John Cudahy, President of the International Council of Air Shows, is relaxed, smiling, and for the first time in a week, NOT running to another meeting while talking on a cell phone.

It is the end of the ICAS convention in Dallas. All around him, the staff is packing up, getting things shipped back to headquarters in Virginia. He’s in jeans and a non-airshow t-shirt. (That’s a surprise), bears a strong resemblance to an actor on “ER” (NOT George Clooney) and he takes 15 minutes to sit down with ANN and recap the show.

Aero-News: Best part of the convention?

John Cudahy-ICAS: I would say there was a definite increase in the business orientation…with both performers and organizers treating this as a business, rather than a hobby masquerading as a business. That’s encouraging for the future of the business.

Aero-News: It was a pretty busy week…

John Cudahy-ICAS: It was…1532 people here, the third biggest ICAS convention ever.  A lot of meetings, a lot of activities, a lot of learning, and a lot of business being conducted.  The show floor was as busy as I’ve ever seen it. Clear indications from almost all the exhibitors that there were fewer tire kickers, more buyers, and that, of course, is good for business.

Aero-News: Rate the quality of the show:

John Cudahy-ICAS: On a scale of 1 to 10, in the exhibit hall, a good strong 8.5. In the seminars, about the same, and overall, a 7.5 or 8. Room for improvement, but very good.

Aero-News: The National Sponsorship. There was the buzz, but you really couldn’t put a name or names on it:

John Cudahy-ICAS: The legal department is still going over the contracts, and we were hoping to be able to present the sponsors and have a major impact at the show. As it is, we will have an announcement by the end of the year and it will fundamentally change the business, and launch the national sponsorship program we have talked about all this week.

Aero-News: It’s said this will be beneficial to the entire industry, performers and show organizers. Does this mean we’ve been underpaid all these years?

John Cudahy-ICAS:  If you run your air show as a business, you would like to be paid more. That’s fundamental. We think airshows can deliver value to corporate sponsors. We’re going to take the lead and hook the right sponsors to the right events. We’re going to try to raise the bar a bit on visibility and stature of airshows to corporate America.

Aero-News: So, airshows have been an underutilized or untapped resources when it comes to moving a product?

John Cudahy-ICAS: It’s been a fairly decentralized business. For example, the people who run the airshow in Oklahoma City have no business dealings with shows in Cleveland, Salinas and Fort Lauderdale. So it’s been difficult for them to approach national sponsors as a group. That’s where ICAS comes in. We’re gonna form consortiums and attract the national sponsors, that will bring more money to the event.

Aero-News:  And we will see the impact in 2004, right?

John Cudahy-ICAS: You bet. We’ll have at least one program to start the season, and more added as spring comes on.

Aero-News:  With what you know of the project, and the sponsorship, how will the airfield look differently on Saturday morning?

John Cudahy-ICAS: You will see a more corporate sponsorship look. The same presence and message at 10 or 20 airshows across the country. Take Budweiser and their NASCAR sponsorship. It’s consistent from one race to the next, and that consistency delivers a product that is larger than the sum of it’s individual parts. These are not individual deals, this is a relationship in a more organized and integrated program.

Aero-News:  Any acts on the floor that just jumped out at you this year?

John Cudahy-ICAS: All our members do a wonderful job… they have worked up to this level, and they are the best of the best. The flying they do identifies them among the elite in aviation. Sean Tucker, Patty Wagstaff, Jim LeRoy, Jim Franklin, Mike Goulian, Matt Chapman, Greg Poe and a number of others who perform well one year to the next, dependable, professional, safe and very good at what they do.

This year, we saw a couple of interesting developments, Les Shockley will be with us, not just in a jet powered truck, but in a jet powered Long-EZ*. Roger Bias and John Moore are coming back with a helicopter to plane transfer act… that hasn’t been around in a while. The X-team is a very exciting, high intensity, old fashioned barnstorming act, lots smoke and noise. It’s the hottest thing in the airshow business right now.

• *ANN checked with Les Shockley, who says he started with a Long-EZ airfoil, highly modified, stressed for 32G’s (or more), The capsule is a custom design, and powered by two T-58’s with afterburners. The aircraft weighs 1,200 pounds, with 3,000 pounds of thrust. First flight set for March.

Aero-News: There was a closed door “Industry Leaders Meeting”...what got discussed?

John Cudahy-ICAS: There are a number of issues that face the industry every year, but this year, we had a potentially tragic Pyro event. It did work out, but it was a wake-up call to make sure that everyone knows what’s going on, where it’s going on, and that everyone’s properly briefed.

From the ICAS perspective, a big problem is attendance figures, we can’t get our arms around the problem…which hits basic credibility, especially with the new sponsorship program. So when it comes to numbers, no more wink and nod about exaggerated attendance figures…we hope to fundamentally change that. We want to create a paradigm shift, basic honesty, and the business of taking an estimate and then doubling it won’t work anymore. With the national sponsorship, we need to have accurate numbers, and ICAS is in the process to quantify, verify and then publicize the numbers that the Airshows can use to promote to the public, and to help their sales.

Aero-News: How did we do on safety this year?

John Cudahy-ICAS: Pretty well. One fatality, a couple of non-fatal accidents, and  in the challenging world of airshow flying, that constitutes a good year. We want a good year to constitute no fatal accidents…no accidents at all.

The Aerobatic Competency Evaluation program that we’ve been running for the last 13 years has been a marvelous thing. The pilots work with each other, the self-evaluation program. It’s self -regulation, and it’s reduced accidents on the order of 70 percent from one year to the next. People not in the business would see that as fewer CNN stories on an airshow crash.

Aero-News: Some attendees not real happy with the hotel here… prices and what they called “not user friendly”.

John Cudahy-ICAS: It’s a fundamental function of the convention industry. This one certainly measures up. You can’t always get it right, but you get input from the members, and try to make it better every year. We had more social activities, a daily newsletter, and we’ve never had that before. We wanted to make it more useful and effective. And the real bottom line…did this convention help our members conduct business, and the answer to that is, absolutely yes. We’re back in ‘Vegas next year, and 2006, 2008 and Orlando in 2005 and 2007.

Aero-News: Some other things our ANN Readers should know?

John Cudahy-ICAS: All 3 jet demonstration teams announced their schedules on Monday morning…for the 5th year in a row. This is significant, and changes the nature of the convention, and is a very big deal. It allows airshows make decisions to hire acts, and the military is recognizing how important this is for their efforts, and they see how ICAS allows them to get their message right to the promoters. We had both US Military jet teams, Five military parachute teams, east and west coast demo teams for the fighters, plus the T-6 demo, the Army, the Air Force Reserve both had big displays.

Aero-News: And the headline we take from this show?

John Cudahy-ICAS: The ICAS efforts when it comes to the sponsorship developments out of meeting will mean a long lasting, fundamental change in our industry. The announcement is coming soon.

FMI: www.airshows.org