How To Run An Airshow 101

[majdomke]

Ok, I've looked around and see numerous postings across all forums of this site regarding airshows. Most deal with uniform issues or recruiting. I'd love to get input from my fellow CAP'ers on how to run an airshow. Since we decide to do these airshows all the time in my neck of the wood... I'd love to know how the seasoned folks do things. Here's my thoughts on topics: What tasks you did at the show, How you advertised them, How you staffed them, How you organized them, etc... Hopefully you get the picture. With this posting, someone who is new to running an airshow, myself included, can glean the necessary information to keep them from going insane and run a good event. Thanks for the input.

[Al Sayre]

Clarify "run"an airshow.  By CAPR 173-4 CAP is prohibited from sponsoring, co-sponsoring or participating in flying activities at airshows.

[majdomke]

Ok, for clarification purposes... CAP is asked to help with a local airshow. We are asked to provide flight line security, static aircraft security, crowd control, general assistance to public, night time security, communications, etc... If you've worked a previous airshow but never been in charge of the CAP portion, what can you give as advice?

[Eclipse]

Clarify "run"an airshow.  By CAPR 173-4 CAP is prohibited from sponsoring, co-sponsoring or participating in flying activities at airshows.

True, but we can and do serve as volunteer staff, up to and including running the operations.  Everything from large, national shows like Osh Kosh, to the local fly-in pancake breakfast.

CAP isn't supposed to have a monetary involvement and no flying in the displays, but anything else is pretty much open.

Static displays of CAP aircraft, equipment, and ground vehicles.

Recruiting booth.

Selling tickets.

Working concessions.

Parking cars.

Flight line & crowd security observation.

And 100 other related activities.

[Larry Mangum]

For start you need to review a couple of regulations as there is not one stop shopping in regards to what is permitted and what is not permitted and as the local wing king has a lot to say as well, you will need to check with wing headquarters also.

CAPR 900-5 Section A subsection 7.
CAPR 173-4 Section C, subsection 14
CAPR 77-1, Section 1, paragraph D

I think that covers it, but again please conduct your own search and check with your wing and group for any additional restrictions or guidlines.

[majdomke]

CAPR 900-5 Section A subsection 7.

Under permitted activities, this pretty much spells it out:
1) CAP members may be used as guides or to provide directions or information.
2) CAP units may setup a recruiting booth and/or a concession stand selling food and drinks on the premises of an
air show, providing that CAP is not in any way acting as a sponsor.
3) CAP members may be used around parked or static display aircraft for guidance, information, or direction.

And that is exactly what our duties are so I feel we are in-line with regs. Perhaps I misspoke by using the word security, but I do understand the difference. I've made it clear in the past that we are not police, we can only give info as it has been told to us. If people want to violate it, similar to crash scenes on ES missions, that is between them and the law.
p.s. Any relation to Paula?

[Larry Mangum]

Paula, is my better half.

[majdomke]

CAPR 77-1, Section 1, paragraph D

You kinda lost me on this one sir... it talks about vehicles CAP can't own in that section.

[majdomke]

Paula, is my better half.

In my other role as squadron PAO, I have some contact with her. She puts out a terrific magazine.

[Larry Mangum]

She is also one of the best MIO's I have seen, she received an "Oustanding" from the AF evaluators during WAWG's last graded eval.

[CadetProgramGuy]

Ok, I've looked around and see numerous postings across all forums of this site regarding airshows. Most deal with uniform issues or recruiting. I'd love to get input from my fellow CAP'ers on how to run an airshow. Since we decide to do these airshows all the time in my neck of the wood... I'd love to know how the seasoned folks do things. Here's my thoughts on topics: What tasks you did at the show, How you advertised them, How you staffed them, How you organized them, etc... Hopefully you get the picture. With this posting, someone who is new to running an airshow, myself included, can glean the necessary information to keep them from going insane and run a good event. Thanks for the input.

if you are looking to FLM or FLS an airshow, then the Flight Line Guide is all you should really need.

If you are the project lead on the FLM / FLS the I would start with a map of the airfield, and a frank discussion with the individual in charge of the airshow.

Learn this:

What will be coming for show planes, and where will they park?
Where is the Hot Pit? (engine start for show planes)
Where do they want to park the GA aircraft?
How do they want movement of aircraft on the ground?
Is the airfield expected to close for an airshow? When?

once you have that, you can decide on manpower, and then recruiting stuff. 

PM me if you need more info.......

(edited for spelling....sorry if I missed some)

[Larry Mangum]

CAPR 77-1, Section 1, paragraph D

You kinda lost me on this one sir... it talks about vehicles CAP can't own in that section.

It is not unusual to use golf carts and atv's at airshows. After an incident in FLWG, we no longer can use atv's at all and golf carts only with the wing kings approval.

[majdomke]

Ok, the ATV part makes sense now. We use golf carts at Watsonville... at least we did last year. I requested one for my show but who knows. Just makes for a long walk at night when doing static checks.

[gistek]

PA Wing's Reading squadron has been helping with the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's World War II Weekend for many years. A few years ago they changed their overall approach to one that more closely follows the Incident Command System. This has worked out very well.

One thing I learned during the couple of years I was on their planning staff is you have to be very firm about refusing to do things CAP is prohibited or that you think could cause potential safety or appearance problems. For instance, every year we were asked to supply older cadets and senior members to help security with the bag search. Since security is mainly looking for weapons, we felt this could present a safety problem. Since anyone finding a weapon is supposed to detain the person, it was felt that this might violate the posse commitatas reg. Therefore we held fast, refusing to participate in bag search.

Also, if you are going to have other organizations help, check with your wing about allowing non-CAP people to be transported on CAP vans. This is not so CAP can drive visitors from parking to the event, but so any Scouts of other groups that come to help can be taken to their duty stations.

Feel free to visit the World War II Weekend at the Reading, PA airport during the first weekend in June. I'd be glad to take you around to see how they handle their part.

[fyrfitrmedic]

PA Wing's Reading squadron has been helping with the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's World War II Weekend for many years. A few years ago they changed their overall approach to one that more closely follows the Incident Command System. This has worked out very well.

The Reading squadron used to do a decent job with the old Reading air shows back in the day.

[Eclipse]

Emergency contingencies should also be very clear and detailed.

1) It will give you an idea if the organizers have their act together (which in turn answers whether you want to be involved).

2) Your uniformed presence implies authority and capability where there may not be any.  Should the poop hit the fan (usually because of weather), they will come to you for information and assistance.  That's not the time to ask the question.

Last year I was involved in supporting a large regional airshow.  Our reaction to a serious weather situation the year before, in the absence of any reaction from the organizers, resulted in a lot of rhetoric from the operations staff that "CAP would be the lead agency...etc."  (yeah, right).

Our primary function was walking the show area and making sure no one touched anything sharp or expensive - form over function.

As the day wore on the weather started getting "exciting", to the point that we were starting to alert the military aircrews and showing them the inbound storm (no one from the show was doing that) - most reacted with a "whoa" and then quickly locked things down - the Osprey, for example, takes more than a few minutes to fold up.

As things got dicey, I went to the CAP POC and told him it looked like it was time to "light up their contingency plans to clear the airport..." as the front was coming in fast with 50mph gusts and tornado warnings.  We're talking 20,000 ish people inside the gates at this point.

The answer from ops was "Well, its pretty much every man for themselves." (literally)

Yes, 20k people with nowhere to go, and that was the answer.  No shelters, no evac plan, nothing.


The heavens rained down, and a lot of people got soaked. We had to tie the CAP canopy down to the COV to keep it from blowing away.

Weather cleared, but more was on the way.  Looked to us like the best thing to do was to clear out while the weather was quiet.

Nope.

As it turns out, the airshow is a for-profit enterprise run by an outside firm and was not necessarily on the airport's Christmas card list.  They had earlier had a "discussion" with the T-Birds regarding their contractual obligations in light of the impending storm.

When we pressed the issue on weather the answer was "we're having an airshow this afternoon once things clear up".  At this point many of the mil-spec aircrews had called it a day and we'd put away our displays, etc.

It started raining again, hard, and the POC, with my blessing, decided enough was enough, and we packed up and left.  Most of us stopped at a restaurant on the way home, not far from the airport, and darn it if the sun didn' come out super bright for the whole meal.  I felt terrible because I thought it would give the impression that we'd scrammed for no reason.

Heh.

About 30 minutes after we were done eating, a storm blew through that made the earlier one look like a spring shower.  Monster gusts, sustained winds and lots of rain.  Threw the vendors and displays all over the place and generally wreaked havoc on a biblical scale.

The scuttle was that a number of key operations people resigned after that and we will not be back this year.

Sad, because they had managed to get a lot of neat toys to show up and had a lot of people interested, but tying our wagon to something that goes South like that because of lack of planning is just not good for CAP.

[Polecat]

Commo. That is going to be one of your top concerns. You need to have great communications no matter how big or how small the show is. Whether its ISRs or runners, use whatever it takes or the whole thing be a meltdown.