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EAA Plans Continue for AirVenture 2021

The Orbis MD-10 Flying Eye Hospital is expected to visit if the show comes together.

A low spot for me on last year’s calendar—in addition to the daily chaos surrounding the pandemic—was the announcement that the world’s annual trek to Oshkosh had been postponed, the first time in EAA history. I’ve been attending this show each year since I was in high school.

Recent word from Oshkosh, however, indicates EAA is already hard at work trying to make AirVenture 2021 a reality in some fashion. “At its fall meeting in November, the EAA board of directors approved the continued planning of the annual fly-in, which typically draws more than half a million people to Oshkosh,” according to a recent Wisconsin Public Radio story. “Dick Knapinski, EAA’s director of communications, said, “We are planning for a full AirVenture event in July 2021. If there’s one thing that the aviation community has told us over the past nine months, it’s how important Oshkosh is to them—it’s their reunion place and their annual touchstone where aviators regenerate with the ‘why’ flying is so special to all of us. There are some areas where things may look different come this summer, but the Oshkosh feeling will be the same.”

Among the events likely to happen this year is the focus on humanitarian aviation that was originally scheduled for 2020. The Orbis Flying Eye Hospital’s MD-10 may well be parked in Boeing Square to offer visitors an opportunity to learn more about the vital role the aircraft plays in developing nations around the world. The MD-10 flying hospital is a former cargo aircraft donated by FedEx for the conversion. EAA said it will also plans to proceed with the 75th anniversary celebration of the end of World War II that was originally planned for 2020. Last year’s final decision on the show wasn’t made until May, so until then all we can do is cross our fingers that AirVenture will go live this July.

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