Warbird Information Exchange

65,000 jobs lost in the USA during this last quarter - means alot of people loosing money and more will eventually follow.

I suspect we are seeing the beginning of a long run and downturn.

With high fuel and oil prices and going even higher, inflating soaring food prices, and major housing and car downturns, the US cannot hold up forever.. a bubble will burst calleed a recession.

It will be a miracle if the world doesnt slide into a deep/long recession soon also.

All this effects airshows as people wont drive to them, cant spend money on fuel or food or goodies and thus economies outside cities will loose even more money than they have for a long time.

Warbirds keeps people employed thru mechanics to food catering to motel and spare parts and film industries. All of these will loose jobs if people stop spending money at airshows.

Airshows are actually very cheap entertainment. Usually, the admission is free or at least low cost. The concessions cost a bit, but no more than at a ball game. For a family, an airshow is a real bargain compared to a ballgame or movie.

And the good thing is that any decent sized city has an airshow once a year or so, so people don't have to drive that far to attend.

Oshkosh, SnF, etc. are a bit different, but I think you may see increased attendance at local airshows in the near future as people skip extended out of town vacations and do more "staycations" where they don't venture that far from home.

Never fear, the commodities bubble will burst, oil will come down quite a bit, and things will be okay once the Media gets a "D" into the White House. Of course, after a year of that Admin, who knows. Not trying to be political here, just stating what I believe is an economic fact.

Rich

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

Cheap entertainment yes- but not for the producers. I dont' think airshows will go away but we will certianly see a downturn for the next few years until the economy rebounds and catches up with fuel prices.
I think this is all very similar to what happened in the late 70's when gas hit a 1.20 a gallon and mortgage rates were around 18%. We heard all of the same concerns from people trying make ends meet(rember minimum wage was like 2.50 then) but people adjusted and then forgot what they went through. We got really lucky for 30 years and forgot that buying big screen TV's and driving enormouse vehicles taht get 10 miles to the gallon (back then Cadillaca, now SUV's)is not a necessity of life.

I do think it will take 10 or so years to get better based on past history but that is all we really have to go by. Unfortuantly the warbird community really was very different back then so we don't have a good model there. Personally, I think the bigger problem is not the cost of fuel but the increasing rarity of parts and the fact that the cost of hte aircraft are rising exponently cutting out the small owners. The fact that public interest and the generating of folks with the direct connection to these great birds is shrinking isn't helping either.

Steve

Hellcat, just had a post on this, are we going to over this again?
http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... sc&start=0

because



because miglover/sabrelover/hguetc doesn't have an original post/picture/link in his/her body.

We've got an airshow going on here this weekend..attendance looks pretty good to me. I hung out in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center today, but tomorrow I actually plan to pony up for a ticket. Fortunately, the airport is within walking distance, so I can avoid the parking fee (more than admission!) and the traffic.

Unfortunately, the only warbird is the Heritage Flight P-51 (Excalibur..I heard being flown by "Snort.") The Starfighters are here, which is awsome..I'd never seen an F-104 in flight! I got a few great pics from just off the end of the runway, until the cops chased everybody out.

Came home and grilled som brats, then we walked back out to the airport and watched the fireworks. All-in-all, a great fourth of July.

As for the bad economy effecting entertainment, it doesn't seem to keep people around here from shooting off thousands of dollars worth of illegal fireworks. Our normally quiet neighborhood sounds like freakin' downtown Mosul tonight!

Here are a few airshow pics...enjoy!

SN