Battle Reenactment at Geneseo

[Warbird Kid]

Piggybacking off the Thunder thread (in what seems like another successful year) I was wondering...

Would Geneseo attenders be interested in seeing a battle reenactment similar to the Thunder display? I know I sure would. But:

1. Could there be enough reenactors assembled to pull off a show like this?
2. Are there any other large reenactment events going on the same time as Geneseo?
3. Could the group in Geneseo be poised to organize such an event during the show?
4. Would the boys in Tennessee be willing to bring there P-47s in for the show?

Thoughts, comments, concerns, questions?

[CH2Tdriver]

It would be a neat thing to see. But more so, the person that organizes and publizises the TOM show should be hired by the folks at Geneseo! The way I figure it, the YAF is a museum much like HAG that operates vintage aircraft, which is expensive. They are trying to raise money to support those aircraft and rebuild the museum lost in the disastrous fire. The questions is, how does a struggling museum put on such a show with so much warbird hardware? Is it admission prices? Do they recruit sponsors?

There was a drastic turn down in the amounts of warbirds this year. When you bring up the subject on the HAG board you get "warbirds cost money...", well how does the YAF do it so well?! I'm amazed what TOM brings in every year and have to get there one of these days. I also remember when Geneseo would give TOM a run for it's money when there was no TOM.

[kmiles]

If you are looking at adding that aspect to your show, the first people you should talk to are the people that put together this show: http://www.odessaevent.com/ They are not far from you, and the show is coming up in the next month or so. It takes some serious cash to put together an event (even the size of ToM which is small compared to Odessa), so be prepared to use a significant amount of your budget to add that aspect to your show. The good part about it is that it can go on even with low clouds, so you still have an attraction even if the weather is not the greatest.

[Warbird Kid]

Thats a really good idea and a great starting place if you indeed wanted a battle reenactment. I for one would think it would be a great addition to the show. You don't have to try and match Thunder, but at least try and emulate it. IIRC they used to do something similar to this in Geneseo back in the day with the Tora team. They'd have Bill Anderson (or whoever was the pilot) being driven in a WWII jeep all the way down the flightline, weaving and ducking to avoid Zeros. As they were speeding down the flightline you could see Bill Anderson fighting to try and put on his pants as they drove up to his P-40. He pulled on his clothes, jumped in, and took off to go fight the ensuing Tora planes. I mean thats what I'm talking about. You have to put a show on that goes farther than just:

Plane starts up & taxis out
Plane takes off
Plane does flybys
Plane lands
Plane taxis in & shuts down

Adding reenactors and ground vehicles really compliments the entire performance. In regards to the shows at Geneseo being so small in recent years, I've heard that the people in charge intentionally try and keep the show small to minimize loss and risk in case of bad weather, etc. Which is a real shame considering what it was, what it is now, and what it can be in the future if they tried to go big again. I was looking at this battle reenactment as adding another dimension to the show, and to possibly help build up the show up again.

[CH2Tdriver]

Well one thing is for sure, this year the crowd just loved the Liberty Jump Team. They're the guys who jump out of the HAG's C-47 in WW2 Airborne gear using the original round chutes. Two sticks of 5 jumpers each. Coming down in the bean field across the runway looked like Arnhem 1944! Add some German's and P-51's for fighter support.....I think we are almost there!

[N3Njeff]

Let me just say from the standpoint of a Military Vehicle owner (Korea-Vietnam and does LH in both). YES the interest is there!!!!! You can certinly combine both Thunder AND Reading all in one if you wanted!!! I have never been to Reading but I have friends that go and they always rave about it.

Now not to start a bashing thread on Living History and Playing war but in the General Public's eye. There are things better understood if visually seen. For me it really hit home when I attended my first Civil War reenactment as a spectator. I knew from reading the history books on what they did but to see guys walk into a field in a march and get what I thought was pretty dam close and then draw and fire .58 caliber muskets at each other at close range, I shivered!!!! MY GOD I thought, I am lucky that my 3rd great granfather survived 3 yrs of that!!!

So to have Geneseo make a run at having a reenactment would be awsome learing tool!!!! There are various LH groups that attend reading, for the Geneseo staff, I would start contacting those units. For vehicles,
http://www.ny-pennmvcc.com/
They have a wide variety of vehicles and I am SURE they would love to attend!!!

I myself would consider the trip in one of my MV's as we had a blast convoying through the small towns of NY while heading to Ft. Drum for a LH show 2 yrs ago. We would need to take the same route to get to Geneseo.

My only concern is that you sound like it would be just WW2??? If you do your research, you will find many like myself that can do more than one conflict. I personally can go Vietnam and Korea and I have slowly been working on a Civil War uniform.
If you guys at Geneseo care to do more than WW2, well feel free to contact me and I can help you work on it.

If you also want vehicles to attend, I have suggestions on what we like to see happen when it comes to our vehicles.

[Warbird Kid]

A few years ago weren't there NY Air Guard Hueys at Geneseo? Where did these go? I could really see a Vietnam reenactment take place there. I think Korea is always the hardest to recreate. Speaking of rare birds to invite...

The H-34 from Long Island is a MUST!
http://www.34restoration.org/

Glad to see some interest in the idea. It just seems like a no-brainer given the beautiful backdrop of upstate NY the airshow is set against. I think it would be in great interest to see this part of the show expanded. Expecially if the 1941 HAG set up an obstacle course through some of the outlying property. Oh, now Im just getting crazy!

BTW Jeff: I was up in your neck of the woods (Sun to Tue) in Arlington.