Interviews with organizers and fans of the CenterPoint Energy Dayton Air Show help illustrate the massive work involved in presenting a nationally recognized show of this caliber every summer, harmonizing dozens of details, hundreds of volunteers and an endless array of never-ending tasks to entertain crowds that may exceed 80,000 people over two days at Dayton International Airport June 22 and 23.
“We are working all year round,” said Katie Mitchell, a manager at aviation services business Wright Brothers Aero and doer-of-all-things for the air show. “And when it hits this time right here, Kevin (Franklin, the air show’s executive director) and I are seven days a week, 12 hours a day.”
“The coordination of all this is just unbelievable,” Franklin said.
A recent coup for the show — Mitchell was able to secure an MQ-9 Reaper drone as a static display at the show for the first time — might be a case in point.
Mitchell and a colleague, Rodney Warner (the show’s military coordinator) were attending an International Council of Air Shows class in Sacramento, Calif. when the opportunity arose. They met a contact from Holloman Air Force Base, home to the MQ-9.
That initial conversation led to what is expected to be the drone’s inaugural appearance in Dayton.
“It’s all about the friendships and the connections,” Mitchell said.
“This is the third year for me” as the show’s executive director, Franklin said. “It’s all about the relationships that you develop. Going out and doing different things with (other) air shows and these conventions.”
“That’s what is going to continue to help us bring new and different acts to this show,” he added.
There are only so many air show performers and headline acts in the United States. Franklin wants to avoid what he calls a “cookie-cutter show.”
For Dayton, that means honoring the community’s military heritage. Securing military planes, assets and acts is a challenge all its own. Every air show wants an F-22, F-35 or A-10; every air show wants the Navy Blue Angels or the Air Force Thunderbirds.
But there is a only finite amount of assets — and those assets may be deployed or pulled back at a moment’s notice if the military needs them somewhere else.
“To get any military acts to fly, it’s nothing but pounding the pavement and trying to call,” Mitchell said.
‘I was just in awe’
Visitors to the Dayton Air Show have always expected a certain military flair to the event, particularly with the show being held so close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, one of the nation’s largest Air Force Bases and often the place where the majestic airplanes and weapons featured in the show were designed and ordered.
Credit: Dayton Daily News
Credit: Dayton Daily News
“A lot of people ask, ‘Why don’t you have more military in the show?’” Mitchell said. “There is a certain allotted amount of (military) demo teams.”
“We’re already working on 2025,” Franklin said in a May interview. “That’s how far in advance you really have to do it.”
The hard work has arguably paid off. For many fans, the air show in Dayton has a reputation to uphold.
“When I was a kid, this (the Dayton show) was like the Paris or the Farnborough of the U.S.,” recalled Billy Smith, a Maryland resident and president of the T-34 Association. “And I came here a couple of times as a military guy, and I was just in awe.”
Smith added, “I’m glad to see the direction that the show is going in now, because it always had a spot in my heart as a young aviator, to get to come to this, the Mecca of air shows for a military guy.”
“Dayton is known as a flagship show. Everybody wants to come to it.” Mitchell said.
If the weather is good and there aren’t complicating factors, the Dayton Air Show “has been one of the most consistent things I’ve seen in my 25 years with ICAS (the International Council of Air Shows), and that is just big numbers and very enthusiastic fans,” John Cudahy, president of ICAS, told the Dayton Daily News last year.
The Montgomery County Convention and Visitors Bureau has estimated that the show has a $3.7 million economic impact.
“The Dayton Air just represents the birthplace of aviation,” said Jim Clark, also a member of the T-34 Association. a group of enthusiasts for the T-34 trainer airplane. “The air show itself has always been kind of a show that sets the mark.”
The association will have at least 16 T-34s in Dayton for this year’s show — the plane once used by Navy and Air Force pilots as trainers. Eight will be static displays on the ground, with eight expected to fly in the show, Clark said.
The Navy used the T-34 Mentor for years, accumulating almost 100,000 flight hours per year, according to the National Naval Aviation Museum.
Featured performers this year include the Navy Blue Angels as the headline aerobatic demonstration team, the Air Force F-16 Viper demonstration team; Tora, Tora, Tora, a recreation of the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor; the Air Force C-17 Globemaster, and more.
Wright-Patterson support
Franklin praised the show’s relationship with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The MQ-9 drone will need 24-hour security, and base personnel help with that.
“A lot of the aircraft we have hear for static (or ground-based displays), they need 24-hour security,” Franklin said. “That’s something the base supports us with.”
Not every effort to pull in new acts is successful. Dayton organizers attempted to arrange what would have been an historic first, scheduling the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds in the same show.
It didn’t work out, Franklin said.
“We were in talks with them early on,” he said. “They (the Thunderbirds) told us early on that they had training commitments that there was no wiggle room on.”
“It definitely would have been remarkable to have both teams.”
The Thunderbirds are scheduled to perform at the Columbus Air Show June 14-16 at Rickenbacker International Airport.
That doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be any surprises.
Franklin said in late May show organizers were working on another act that might be the show’s “cherry on top.”
Other show attractions include what’s expected to be a quartet of flying simulators, including a Joby Aviation simulator.
And the to-do list only gets more urgent as the show dates approach. Picking up trash, pulling weeds, arranging rental cars for acts and staff, cementing safety arrangements. Cutting grass, raising fences.
“There’s definitely a team here.” Mitchell said.
The show requires more than 2,000 volunteers and some 20 vendors.
The payoff for all the work is clear for Michael Grossmann, CEO and owner of Akron charter flight company Castle Aviation.
“Whenever we fly at these air shows, or we do flyovers for veterans and so forth, it’s always an honor,” said Grossman, who flies in the T-34 Association. “It’s just very cool this year. It’s the 50th (Dayton) air show, and we’re celebrating 75 years of the T-34. It is something of an honor to respect the air show.”
“That never gets old,” Clark said of entertaining air show crowds. “From my seat, from my perspective, what I see is a lot of people with their heads just looking up at the sky and just watching us fly. What I particularly enjoy is the children. Their eyes – I mean, you can see them from space.”
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