Warbird Information Exchange

Yea, all 4 half shows. Of what flying there was, it was good. We were at the airport as gates opened at 7am until the Blues finished at 5pm. That's 10 hours at the airport not including arriving before the gates opened and waiting to get out. Of that 10 hours on the field there barely 3 hours of actual flying. That's 7+ hours of waiting, minus the 45m or so looking at the least amount of statics ever at TOM.

Things did not start well before ever setting foot on the field. All the cars were lined up waiting to get in. When they opened the gates everyone started up moving forward only to find out the people in charge lined us all up at the wrong gate. Everyone had to turn around and go back to the main road. Of course everyone at the front of the line were now behind those that were in back them moments earlier. Once parked we were greeted with incessant dance remixes at concert levels. Because everyone who gets up at 5am wants to be blasted by that all day.

It was clear from the empty hot ramp that there were issues. Because they were doing two two hour "half shows" each day they booked just enough to fill that time frame. So with more than one or two cancellations it gets dicey and they had plenty of cancellations. What did fly was OK, enjoyed it. However, at the end of morning we all looked at each and said that was not a $250 airshow by any measure. The afternoon show would be better but that was still 3 hours away. Not sure why the afternoon show didn't start until 2:30pm as I'm pretty sure the afternoon show started at 1pm last year. There were fewer cancellations in the afternoon and we really enjoyed the 190/109. Of course there was the immediate buzzkill of the 45m wait for the Blues to begin. Rinse and repeat Sunday with the addition of the Leap Frogs and a few departures.

I'm over with the Drive-In format, it's time is done. If they continue with it and the ridiculous prices we will not be back. That will be sad as I've been to every TOM since 2010 and have great memories but we can't justify $1,000 to go to an airshow on top of hotel, gas, & food. Because it is an 16 hour round trip drive it's not worth it to go for just one day. We already are considering replacing TOM with the St Louis show. They have had better shows that last couple of times, the drive is the same, and of course only cost like $30/day.