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At this year’s air show, the F-35 Lighting II and F/A-18 Super Hornet, top aerobatic acts Sean D. Tucker, Rob Holland, and an all-female skydiving team, the Misty Blues, among other performers, appeared in the skies above Dayton. The show at Dayton International Airport had a tarmac filled with military and civilian aircraft on the ground, also.
“I am so proud,” Michael Emoff, air show chairman, said in an interview Monday. “I know how hard we work and we know we put on a good air show but we never had a way to measure until now from a public opinion poll. … We never really knew how we were received in the industry, so now we know.”
Top performers flying at the air show propelled the spectator event to the top 10 ranking, said Terry Grevious, air show executive director.
“We always felt the Dayton Air Show was one of the nation’s best and I think the reader’s choice just kind of substantiates that,” he said. “Dayton is a very well known show first because it’s the home of the Wright brothers, I think that’s the foundation of it all, and it’s been around many, many years.”
The National Championship Air Races and Air Show in Reno, Nevada, was rated the top show in the nation followed in the No. 2 slot by EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
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The Air Force Thunderbirds were set to perform in Dayton but canceled June 24-25 weekend demonstrations when a F-16 Thunderbird jet flipped over in a grassy area after landing June 23 at Dayton International Airport. A pilot was hospitalized several days and a backseat crew member was treated and released.
The two were flying in the No. 8 jet, a two-seat F-16D, on a familiarization flight.
An Air Force accident and safety investigation review board was determining the cause of the accident.
An estimated 44,000 spectators attended the air show this year.
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The air show isn’t the only Dayton institution to end up on a USA Today readers poll ranking: The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force was named the third best free museum in the United States in an online poll last year.
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