Over 200 Operations Per Hour Recorded By Temporary Control Tower

Organizers of the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo at Sebring say that they had record attendance for at least part of the four-day run of the show. No official attendance figures have been announced, but a headline from their blog dated Saturday proclaims "EXPO Breaks All Attendance Records." Mike Willingham, Sebring Regional Airport Director, said "This is the best attendance we've ever had on a Thursday. And, we expect to break attendance records every day this year." Over 300 people attended the annual LAMA dinner Thursday night.

2010 Photo

The organizers also say they had a very busy Friday in terms of airplane movements. Bert Simpson, FAA Staff Manager, North Florida District, said “There were 1091 operations Friday. More than any airport in the state of Florida. There were over 200 operations in the first two hours on Saturday alone. That’s the same as Atlanta Hartsfield or Chicago O’ Hare.” Simpson said later that the airport became, for a time, the busiest in the country, based solely on airplane movements.

Aero-Analysis

While the claim of record attendance figures may or may not stand up, the feel of the show did not seem to be as busy as had been noted in years past. Some exhibitors did seem to have fairly good foot traffic, and several people looking at the various aircraft and associated equipment. From personal observation, which we'll admit is far from scientific, it just seemed like the Expo had lost some of the momentum it had achieved last year.

There were no significant new product announcements made at Sebring this year. Perhaps the comparison to previous years is unfair because of the major announcements on the part of Piper for the now-defunct Piper Sport were made at the Sebring show ... introducing the plane in 2010 and the first delivery in 2011. But overall, and we realize this is very subjective, it felt like there were fewer people walking the airport grounds on the Friday and Saturday we were in attendance.

The good news is, there was a significant amount of demo flying going on. The Calidus autogyro flew nearly constantly through the day on Saturday, as did the Pipistrel Virus, Kitfox, and several others. And vendors we spoke to seemed to indicate they were having a good show, though some were concerned about price increases for their booth spaces. Still, with most of the airplanes that do not come with the caveat "some assembly required" ringing the cash register in the $85,000 to $150,000 range, the role of the LSA as an entry-level aircraft is still very much an open question in today’s economy.

The light-sport segment of the industry needs a show like Sebring. It may well need more than one in different parts of the country. Trade shows can certainly be an effective way to present products to a large group of people, and the south-central Florida location in January should be at least something of a draw. What's difficult to know is how yeasty is the audience attending the show. Is it an active, growing segment of pilots and potential pilots which can help the industry rise, or is it the same several-thousand people coming year after year because it’s a warm place to go in January and be around airplanes? The answer may be somewhere in the middle, but from our perspective, the organizers, and the industry, need to be mindful that attendees will likely quickly lose interest a show, and an industry, with nothing much new to offer.

FMI: Did you attend Sebring? Let us hear your comments