Jack Pelton’s Closing Remarks, MOSAIC, Numbers, AV22

Jack Pelton, CEO And Chairman of EAA, speaks at an Oshkosh press conference about the hopeful look ahead after bouncing back from 2020’s cancellation. Pelton opened up by saying, “We’re back. We are finally back, and this is gonna be the beginning of the next resurgence of what we are going to see as far as AirVenture goes in the years to come”.

“Everybody, as far as the exhibitors, had a very very successful week. It looks like we are going to close out 2021 with 608,000 people in attendance. While that's not a record, to think of the situation that we are still in with no international travelers, a lot of things going on in parts of our own country that are prohibitive for people to get around. It’s absolutely unbelievable, to see that it went off essentially flawless,” Pelton continued.

“The other item that we are extremely proud of for this week is it was an extremely safe event. When you look at the normal activity of the numbers of airplanes that arrive here, we had over 22,000 aircraft movements that occurred during the week and approximately 16,000 almost 17,000 airplanes on the ground parked here with no airplanes being turned away,” Pelton shared.

Oshkosh 2021 also had over 50,000 automobiles checked in, with 12,000 camping check-ins. The EAA also had 244,698 members on the final day of the event which is up from their 2019 membership total of 232,000.

ANN took the opportunity to speak with Pelton about MOSAIC, and what can be expected for the future. Pelton revealed that the timeline for MOSAIC has always been pegged for January 2023. Earlier in the week, the FAA Administrator spoke at Oshkosh mid-week and informed the public that MOSAIC was now looking at the fall of 2023.

“It takes a full year for rule-making, and it takes a full year for when it goes out for public comment. The whole rule-making process is about a four year thing. So it’s disappointing that it’s slipping, but the fact that he [the FAA Administrator] is still at least committed to it, is very encouraging and I think what's going to come out of that is our next big leap in aviation as far as being able to bring more people in, and lower the cost,” Pelton responded.

In regards to the compensation/flight instructor controversy that is ongoing, ANN questioned how things will be handled moving forward, and what solutions are in the works after a temporary solution was offered by the Administrator mid-week. “As far as what they did leading into AirVenture with the training issue, that was the biggest embarrassment I’ve ever seen by a public agency. We’ve had this training requirement in place, it’s actually stood through the courts over the 60 years.”

Pelton continues, “For them as a result of that to then turn around and make a complete reinterpretation against a very specific segment of aviation which is the experimental, amateur built category, primary category and exhibition category, is just embarrassing.”

He continued discussing two bills in the Senate that he hopes will help to turn this around quickly and send a strong message.

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