Arlington Fly In 2019 Highlights

[ArlingtonRV]

In case anyone was wondering, the Arlington Fly In does continue, but it does seem to get smaller every year. They changed things up this year by moving it from July, just before Oshkosh, to the middle of August.

There was pretty light airplane attendance, though there were easily more RVs than any other single type. Part of that may have been due to the cloudy weather which probably prevented visitors from too far away. Today the ceiling was mostly about 3,100 overcast to broken until mid afternoon, with about a 1,000 feet lower on Friday. At least it wasn't hot, about 68 degrees on Friday and 75 on Saturday. It is at least a slight exaggeration to say that there were more campers than airplanes.

Noticeably absent this year was the guy with a New Standard bi-plane selling rides and an R-44 helicopter selling rides. New this year was a model airplane flying event featuring really big models an jets. They must have been really big because we could see them from my hangar probably close to a mile away.

There weren't many highlights, but here are my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J21WAI16uI

[flyboy1963]

Nice video Steve....for a minute I thought ONLY taildraggers were allowed!

I just realized my first Arlington was exactly 40 years ago...I was 16, tented on site with my Dad. LOVED the dawn patrol, ( some poor stiffs had to push a couple Stearmen waaaaaaaaay down the taxiway so they could takeoff in near silence, no fine pitch howl that day) and then buzz the grounds at oh-dawn thirty!
Some fond memories there; wandering around the site, hangars were open, strange giant steel shipping barrels with pickled radials in them...ahhhh the smell of airplanes!
Lunch was burgers from a grill, supper; steak & spaghetti from the Lions club? ( things are getting murky)....and a barn dance in the evening, where I met a cute girl there with her family....& we debated at some length, the proper way to pronounce 'roof' ;-)
If that's the 'new' smaller, quieter Arlington that's returning, then I may just take my taildragger down there next year! ( oh, wait...do I need ADSB? dang!)

[seward747]

Thanks for the video, Steve.
To me, it was a telling statement when they changed the name to Arlington BALOON fest and Fly-In (emphasis mine). I was there with my Luscombe in the Vintage area, which was a nice operation this year; decent variety of vintage and antiques (including the VERY authentic Spirt of St. Louis replica) and a nice hospitality "suite".
RV attendance way down, as you say, partly, no doubt, due to same weekend as Van's Homecoming, though someone had a beautiful -4 in WWll colors , oddly parked over in the contemporary area .


Doug
Seattle area

[Wunderon]

Originally Posted by RV8JD

The replica is amazing, to say the least.

100% true, must see if you get a chance

[alpinelakespilot2000]

Was Van's noticeably absent again? I know a couple years ago they understandably stopped going because it was just before Oshkosh, but I hope they start showing up at Arlington again. It's got to be pretty hard for the Arlington fly-in to attract other regional exhibitors if the experimental community's largest kit manufacturer, also from the NW, doesn't support it.

[scsmith]

I like the idea of doing it in mid August. I had taken it off my radar completely so I didn't know. Maybe put it back on my radar.

Need to do something different to create a fresh draw. How about some kind of race from a distant starting point, kinda like airventure cup? Or how about some kind of lap races around the area?

[Plummit]

Originally Posted by alpinelakespilot2000

Was Van's noticeably absent again? I know a couple years ago they understandably stopped going because it was just before Oshkosh, but I hope they start showing up at Arlington again. It's got to be pretty hard for the Arlington fly-in to attract other regional exhibitors if the experimental community's largest kit manufacturer, also from the NW, doesn't support it.

Vans was at 7S5 for the homecoming fly-in this weekend.

-Marc

[terrye]

I've been going to Arlington since 1990, and only missed a few years in between. However, the last five to eight years have seen a shift in focus, a drop in attendance, and a significant change in the number and variety of exhibitors. As a result, I've not attended the last two years. For me, the military presence in the form of tanks, guns, boats, jeeps and "re-enactors" is a complete turn off. The drop in attendance seemed to start after the "Great Recession" of 2008 and never recovered. From my several discussions with exhibitors, I was given to understand that Washington state had decided that the exhibitors from out of state were selling goods and services at Arlington and therefore imposed a sales tax on them. This was when, and the reason why, Vans, as well as other out of state exhibitors stopped coming to Arlington. One of the big reasons I decided to build my RV-9A was watching Van himself perform his low level aerobatic display in his RV-4 and also his RV-6A. I thought if the owner of the company and the designer of the airplanes had that kind of confidence in them, the airplane family must be sturdy, sporty and worth buying. I think so even more today.

I have a lot of nostalgia from the decade of the 1990s and early 2000s about the Arlington fly-in, but I'm afraid it will never be as interesting and compelling as it was then.