Warbird Information Exchange

Hello everyone,

As Father's Day approaches... one of the most busy warbird-ride days of the year... I am curious on the warbird ride market in general and what the future holds.

I'd like to get everyones take on this... and any insight from the folks out there "in the trenches" on the warbird ride circuit.

It's no surprise to anyone that we are in a rather tough economy now. I do my best to be a loyal 'consumer' and do my part to keep the wheels of commerce churning, but with in a two-income household that went to one when my wife was laid off a few months ago, its getting harder and harder.

A lot of us here are in the same pickle in one way or another...

So my question is, what is this doing to the warbird ride market? Only a few years ago it seemed that warbird rides were booming and everybody and their brother was starting an AT-6 or PT-17 ride program and all the bomber tours were increasing their ride prices and the public was still paying...

It doesn't seem like that anymore though. Collings Foundation dumped the B-25 from the National tour, Warbird Adventures just does rides from KISM now, YAF B-17 & B-25 rides seem pretty soft (based on their website) and as far as I know, the B-17 Sentimental Journey did only a handful of rides in Mesa over the winter.

What's everyone else seeing out there? How's the EAA doing with Aluminum Overcast? What about Liberty Belle? Are there any C-47s that are doing any business with rides these days? What about the "onesy-twosies" like the SBD Dauntless or P-51 Mustang (Dixie CAF comes to mind)... and how about that B-24 we all have a special connection to, "Ol' 927"?

Hopefully the summer fuel prices don't rise too much, making expenses increase significantly... that certainly cuts in on the bottom line. But what about engine overhauls and the other costs of doing business? Are spares getting more and more expensive and labor (mechanic-wise) getting harder and harder to find to keep the roadshow going?

What kind of incentives are the ride groups having to give out to get warm bodies in the seats? Discounts? Coupons? Freebies like jackets, posters, or videos with each flight? How about the cost of advertising? Newspapers are dying and trying to keep afloat by raising ad costs... radio stations too. Is the press paying attention and giving PR value despite smaller staffs, "lead with what bleeds" editorial pressure, and green reporters who (when it comes to WWII) don't know a B-25 from a B-52 and thought Jimmy Doolittle dropped the bomb on Hiroshima which made the Nazis surrender?

What is the future of these ride programs in all seriousness? Are the big 50-100 city tours that some of the groups embark on going to remain economically viable over the coming years or are these groups going to retract to shorter, regional tours -- or are they going to just find a place in the sun where the tourists play and fly from base operations and sleep in their own beds at the end of the night?

For this discussion at least, let's not bring up the TSA -- that is a whole other situation that will present it's own challenges. For this discussion, let's just keep it to the point if people are still spending on warbird rides and are the groups making up the costs of doing business in the end?

I'll join in with my take and my experiences a bit further into the conversation...

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

I would love to buy a ride in Ol' 927! I didn't know they were selling rides. I think it is one of those things that people keep thinking, man this is alot of moeny. But once you do it, you will never look back. I did the EAA B-17 flight a few years back at KOSH. At the time 350 bucks. I could have done alot with that at the time. But now, I never think of the 350, but I will always remember the B-17 time.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

At Whiteman AFB last Saturday, I talked to the crew of Pacific Princess (B-25)...They didn't fare too well at the event...Some of the reasons I believe was that it was a one day show, as per regs, the military dosen't allow these types of flights from the air base, so they were only able to fly from nearby airports....Sedalia, Mo....or Kansas City ...At the close of the show, they only had one confirmed rider....Hope more turned out for them...
Gary

Well, we have had 2 of 4 B-17's out here so far this year. Liberty Belle was first and she was up so much I don't know if they even had her open for ground tours. Aluminum Overcast was just here and based on what I saw it seemed like she flew less than in previous years. I wonder how the Collings group will do next weekend. Sentimental Journey will be in Everett and Bellingham I believe in late August or September.

If I could afford it i'd be going for rides all summer long. That's not the case with me though. It's not the economy (not that it helps), it's just that I work an average job that doesn't pay a ton. I guess you could say i'm just a hair over paycheck-to-paycheck. I only get to splurge on these rides every couple years and it's usually because i've saved for quite some time or like last year when I rode on Pacific Prowler I sold a bunch of stuff on ebay and paid for my ride that way.

As for what the people selling the rides could do, i'm not sure. At least in Seattle folks seem to know they're here and this year I had more customers than ever ask me if I knew Liberty Belle & Aluminum Overcast were coming. I of course did because i'm insane and constantly check the schedules but the word was getting out somewhere.

Some people seem to think $350-450 for a 20-25 minute ride is ridiculous but they don't understand the piece of history they are getting to experience. All I could ask for is that the rides maybe be a bit longer. The plane's already up so what would an additional 10-15 minutes cost? I guess a couple rides a day.

I still have yet to decide what to fly on next and when it will be but hopefully it'll be soon. I'd love to do FIFI but when she was about to start selling rides last time they were a bit out of my price range. I think I could've flown on at least 3 B-17's for that cost. She'll do fine though and maybe the price will come down and I can experience a flight in her.

P.S. When is somebody gonna get an A-26 on the ride circuit?

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-Al Sauer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spookythecat

I help coordinate media relations for CF in Valparaiso, IN and can say the media greatly influences whether people come and ride. In 2007 I was able to secure coverage in 7 local newspapers across the tri-county area of Lake, Porter and La Porte Counties. In addition we had radio and television coverage. As a result of this we had 6 B-17 rides, 4 B-24 rides and 3 B-25 rides. Lines for the aircraft were about a dozen deep all day. Overall it was one of the best Valparaiso stops in several years. Plus, this was a weekday stop which was very good.

A year later in 2008 I was only able to get 1 newspaper to announce the arrival in advance. CF had 4 ads in several papers as well. However, I was able to get 2 newspapers and 1 TV station on the inbound flight. As a result we only had 4 B-17 rides, 1 B-24 ride and 7 P-51 flights. It seemed the press felt it was old news in 2008 as they did a ton of coverage the year before.

Two months later we had the EAA B-17 stop by and it sold 6 flights over 2 days. However, they received much more press than CF several months prior.

Well, CF is returning on July 27-29 and I'm working my tail off to get as much coverage as possible. It also looks like hours are a little longer than in years past so hopefully that'll encourage people to stop by after work.

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"Keep 'em Flying!"

Good luck Mike! I hope they give you a freebie for your efforts!

Spooky, I hear what you're saying, but whatever the cost will end up being, I can assure you it'll be worth every penny. I've never really gotten much out of the bomber rides (was always fortunate enough to ride around in trainer or fighter types), but I must admit that flying on FIFI is without a doubt one of the things that ranks high on my "neato list." You gotta remember that it toured around the country for years and years, without the option to purchase a ride. Hopefully, the people in charge won't screw it all up when the airplane is ready to fly again, and WILL have rides available, at a reasonable price. You gotta remember, the last time we flew the airplane, it cost us roughly $8,500.00 per hour to operate it, so if you gotta pay $1,000.00 for a ride in it, I'd say that's pretty reasonable.

In other words, I know it's a chunk of change, but it'll be worth every penny and will be an experience that very few have had.

Just my $.02 worth.

Gary

There is a demographic out there that will ride in the airplanes. However, the advertising aimed at that demographic is massive. I mean to say that any potential warbird passenger is in a blizzard of ad copy aimed specifically at them, but not to induce them to get on board warbirds. At MAAM WWII weekend, there were B-25, B-17, Dauntless, T-6, Stearman, and PT-19 rides available. Most of them seemed busy. But this was a good venue for doing the rides.

Any capital raising endeavor is going to have limitations on the income stream. I think that the best approach is to use the old barnstormer method- good front men and a venue which induces people to ride in the airplane. The only issue with that is that Reading has taken 20 years to build up WWII weekend, which begs the question about the immediate sustainability of the rides.

Parts are not an issue. As long as the airplane is in a scheduled maintenance program (which it needs for a ride exemption) and it is not flown with unskilled operators, they could well last another century. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be some serious de-rivetting and re-rivetting going on over a century, but parts are out there (I have a few myself) for whoever needs them. Skilled workers, on the other hand, are definitely in short supply. Some people may get offended by my harsh urging to quit talking about warbirds and start working on them, but the fact is that there are fewer and fewer people with extensive experience with radial engines, props, and 1940's era hydraulics, electrics, avionics, airframe. Your typical A&P mechanic does paperwork and sends airplanes to service centers- not good for the constant needs of the typical 100 hour hands-on maintenance of any large aircraft.

There is no dispute that this is a tougher sell for owners. But I don't think that in an $11 Trillion GDP economy we can't get a billion or two to keep our airplanes running.

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

Will be happy to fill in the blanks after our Wings Over Waukesha Salute to Veterans Tour stop of Aluminum Overcast after next weekend.

We are hoping and expecting a great turn out. We have about 20 other military aircraft on board for static and some formation fly over stuff, WWII reenactors, NG demos, Flight for Life demos, vintage vehicles, etc.

We hope it to be a great "show". "AO" seems to do well here in Waukesha.

Yawl come, now hear?

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

I'm really hoping to make this happen someday, Gary. That's one of the things I have to tell people when they ask why it's so much. These airplanes aren't cheap to keep in the air and they don't make much if any money when they tour. They just want to share the experience and history with everyone they can and in return they get to play with the coolest toys around.

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-Al Sauer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spookythecat

Ryan, the CF Huey has done reasonably well so far this year. We held our own with the bombers and the 51 during the Texas part of the tour. We would have done better but we lost 4 stops due to bad weather and 1 where the crowd was virtually a no show.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Greetings fellow WIX'ers...a quick mid-year report from the CAF Dixie Wing...

We've actually done OK with rides this year as private airshow events fall by the wayside and govt shows (we hope not ) might be affected next year with budget cuts.

Seeing where the economy was going we decided to undertake more local rides days as well as sending aircraft north during summer; A rides day in Atlanta during the summer is the best weight loss program ever!

Some other things we have been doing to help with rides business:

+ We are lucky that we have a wide range of single engine aircraft from small trainers to the P-51; this gives everyone a chance to do a ride no matter the budget.

+ As stated before we try to combine airshows with rides days with sister CAF wings in other locations.

+ We pay a referral fee for pre-sold rides from CAF Wings, EAA chapters or other orgs.

+ We personalize each ride with a certificate, picture and other goodies.

+ Each aircraft is marketed with its historical story

+ Our main marketing channel is the internet; check out www.dixiewing.org and go the rides section. Our team has some really great web techs.

+ We push the web site through a lot of channels to maximize coverage.

+ When the planes are not flying we do cockpit tours for kids. This is a great upper body workout for those looking to get in shape!

+ We target our advertising and event selection towards aviation, automobile or historical groups. We dropped general public advertising several years ago as it was ineffective in a large metro area like Atlanta.

Feel free to post any questions here about rides days or other promotional ideas. Id be glad to offer other insights....

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Rauhbatz
Commemorative Air Force
CAF Ohio Wing/Airbase Georgia Member
PT-19/26, T-34 CAF Pilot


Favorite quote from Wind, Sand & Stars - A. St. Exupuery "friends are like trees...when they are gone we miss their shade"

Hey Ryan, Liberty Belle was doing a huge amount of rides as of about a month ago, the last that Bob had flown her (just before Jerry Yagen's event). He had called me from both Atlanta and Dallas and the numbers were awesome (like 12-13 flights a day). He took the plane out west then handed it over to Ray I guess, and it sounds from Al that it was busy there too.

Rich

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Rich Kolasa
www.crystalgraphix.com

Liberty Belle did like 14 rides a day.

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-Al Sauer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spookythecat

Anybody with a Corsair having a jump seat, contact me and I'll be certain that my checkbook has ample funds and I'll be more than happy to meet you at your convenience.