What Are Your 2024 Airshow Plans?

[awal2049]

My list is pretty simple

JB Charleston, SC - April 19-21
MCAS Cherry Point, NC - May 11-12
Ocean City, MD - August 24-25
NAS Oceana, VA - Sept 21-22

Considering:
Rochester, NY
NAS Jax, FL

Cherry Point looks pretty good because of the USMC assets, and you get a MAGTF as well. Possibly the final USMC Harrier demo ever unless they do Beaufort in 2025.

One thing I’ll say is I’d put a demo at Beaufort in the unlikely category as they didn’t do one this year. I’d encourage anyone who has any interest to make it out to Cherry Point if you can. They did a formation flight for the Prowler in 2016, so I’d say that’s on the table as well

[passedgas46]

My wife and I have a lot going on in 2024 and plan to move back to our home state of New Jersey to be closer to our families. I did promise her we'd visit another country next year and I think I've sold her on a Quebec visit. The current thinking is this:

Charleston, SC (Family friend works for Boeing SC and promised us a tour)
Panama City, FL (Charleston and this are contingent on having already moved)
Dover AFB
West Milford, NJ (4N1, we almost went this year but backed out due to the smoke)
Bagotville, Quebec
Avondale, PA (N57, this is practically in our backyard)
Binghamton, NY
Millville, NJ
Atlantic City, NJ (Our family's traditional weeklong trip)
Latrobe, PA
Cleveland, OH or Toronto, Ontario (Haven't been to either in years; last time I saw an airshow in Toronto was when the Nimrod crashed)
Ocean City, NJ (Hopefully I don't break any bones this time around!)
NAS Oceana
Houston, TX (With a possible trip down to Southern TX to visit Starbase)

I've got a few other locations in mind and if we're lucky we'll be able to go to at least half of what I've listed.

Edited because our bid on a house in NJ was accepted, hopefully closing by the end of April, and that takes any trip in April/early May out of the equation for us. So, no Charleston or Panama City, and we'll be starting the year at Dover.

[MarcosMCM]

May be too early to plan stuff right now but here's what mine looks like as if today

Planned:
Fort Lauderdale Airshow: May 11th -12th
Atlantic City Airshow: August 14th

Planning right now:
Thunder over Dover: May 18th -19th
WWII Weekend: June 7th- 9th
Ocean City Airshow: August 24th-25th

Not sure:
Greenwood Lake: June 14th - 16th
New Garden Airshow: June 24th
Millville Wheels & Wings Airshow: July 20th - 21th

[miker5012]

So what would be considered the top military airshows this year? Who's got the most demo teams scheduled?

MCAS Mirimar seems to have a solid amount of military participation. Plus is one of the last shows for Rob Reider.

[miker5012]

My list:
May 11/12 MCAS Cherry Point
June 29/30 Traverse city Mi
July 3/4 Battle Creek Field of Flight
July 22/28 Spending the week at Oshkosh
July 28 hitting up Milwaukee on the way home to see Frecce (unless they come to EAA and then I can avoid the drunkenness of Milwaukee)
Sept 29/30 MCAS Mirimar

Trying to figure out how I can see the CF-18 without going to London sky drive

[passedgas46]

So what would be considered the top military airshows this year? Who's got the most demo teams scheduled?

MCAS Mirimar seems to have a solid amount of military participation. Plus is one of the last shows for Rob Reider.

Having been to Miramar several times even when it was a Navy base, I can certainly vouch for this. Damn near everything the Marines have flies in the show during the MAGTF demo as most everything is either based at Miramar or within 30 minutes flying time. Same for Cherry Point, though I've yet to go to one of their airshows. The USAF seems to always send something to both locations and the Marines seem to do separate Harrier, Osprey, and Lightning II at those shows, too, though I doubt you'd see a Harrier demo anymore.

The schedules for the Rhinos, Growler, and Charlie Lightning II aren't known yet and I don't want to play a guessing game here.

Trying to figure out how I can see the CF-18 without going to London sky drive

That's one reason we're going to Bagotville. Wife wants to spend a day in Quebec City as a fair trade for two days at that airshow. It won't happen unless she gets her passport situation squared away.

[miker5012]

So what would be considered the top military airshows this year? Who's got the most demo teams scheduled?

MCAS Mirimar seems to have a solid amount of military participation. Plus is one of the last shows for Rob Reider.

Having been to Miramar several times even when it was a Navy base, I can certainly vouch for this. Damn near everything the Marines have flies in the show during the MAGTF demo as most everything is either based at Miramar or within 30 minutes flying time. Same for Cherry Point, though I've yet to go to one of their airshows. The USAF seems to always send something to both locations and the Marines seem to do separate Harrier, Osprey, and Lightning II at those shows, too, though I doubt you'd see a Harrier demo anymore.

The schedules for the Rhinos, Growler, and Charlie Lightning II aren't known yet and I don't want to play a guessing game here.

Trying to figure out how I can see the CF-18 without going to London sky drive

That's one reason we're going to Bagotville. Wife wants to spend a day in Quebec City as a fair trade for two days at that airshow. It won't happen unless she gets her passport situation squared away.

I’m dying laughing over here. I just have to ask where are you based at ? You can’t get much more northeast than Bagotville, and can’t get much more southwest than MCAS Mirimar. You have quite the range when traveling for shows.

[passedgas46]

I’m dying laughing over here. I just have to ask where are you based at ? You can’t get much more northeast than Bagotville, and can’t get much more southwest than MCAS Mirimar. You have quite the range when traveling for shows.

You have to keep in mind that I'm old enough to have seen both the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds when they were flying Phantoms, but I don't remember seeing them fly them. I do remember some of my first airshows after they switched to the A-4 and T-38, respectively. All my life I've been blessed to live near some approaches to Newark, McGuire, Philadelphia, and Dover and that's how my father's (and my) interest in aviation got started. I could go on and on but don't want to bore you.

As for travel, my motto there is you only live once so why bother putting off traveling until later when you might not be able to. Before the Internet became what it is, my father had friends in the military and would always get an inside track of where the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds would be each year and when I was younger we did many trips based on that. Still do to this day to some extent, just like most of you on here. My parents and I developed friendships with some great people all across the country and some of these trips were to visit them and see some airplanes fly. Believe it or not, I've never been to AirVenture or Sun & Fun.

As for Bagotville, my wife wants to visit Quebec City so we're going to make that trip into a drive up and spend the day there before continuing onto Bagotville. It's only 12-13 hours away from northern DE but hopefully by that time we can cut that trip down to 10½ hours, or we may just fly.

[jhtolatc]

As of right now:

Dayton June 21-23
Willow Run July 19-20
Oshkosh July 24-27

Maybe:
London Sept 12-14

[Tpinky17]

For now:

Oshkosh (Not sure which days yet)
La Crosse
Wausau
Milwaukee (Possibly the Sunday show due to EAA and Milwaukee being the same week)


Not sure
Sun n Fun