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AirVenture Bound? Remember the Sunscreen

Mark Phelps
Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • EAA AirVenture's overwhelming scale can lead visitors, even veterans, to miss out on specific attractions, vendors, or experiences they intended to see.
  • Effective pre-planning is crucial to combat this, starting with creating a detailed list of "must-see" items, events, or people of interest.
  • Prioritize your list (A, B, C), mark locations on the AirVenture map, and use a calendar to schedule time in different areas of the expansive event.
  • While planning, remember to stay flexible for unexpected encounters and prioritize personal comfort, such as staying hydrated and using sunscreen.
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It’s easy to get overwhelmed. The sensory overload of EAA AirVenture can take over and cause first-time visitors to scurry around in all directions like a drug-sniffing dog let loose at Woodstock. Even veteran AirVenture-goers can lose focus in the face of so much to see and do. And let’s not get all anxious about that, either. What can be bad about having so much to capture your imagination in one place, at one time?

But the downside would be missing out on something you really came to see, hear or find out more about. Of course, it’s not the big stuff. If you’re seriously in the market for a panel upgrade or a set of vortex generators for your airplane, you’ll have those vendors in the front of your brain. But it’s the less vital things that sometimes fall through the cracks. Maybe you have a friend who wanted you to check out a kitplane manufacturer he was interested in. Or a rare warbird you’d always wanted to see up close. When the thought comes to mind at a random time during the other 51 weeks of the year, it can easily be lost in the eye-candy tsunami that is AirVenture.

Mark Phelps

Mark Phelps is a senior editor at AVweb. He is an instrument rated private pilot and former owner of a Grumman American AA1B and a V-tail Bonanza.

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