Erie Air Show ~ What a Disappointment!

My grandfather, a veteran of the United States Army could not wait to go to the Erie Air Show. He goes every year and has a great time reminiscing and talking about all the flying he did. He would walk through some of the planes, show me where he would sit and what he would do, have a hot dog and a beer, then sit down to watch many different types of planes from the different wars fly overhead in many different formations. That was not to happen this year.

This was the first year my grandmother could not attend due to her health, which in a way was a blessing. She would not have had fun. Every single booth was either a radio station, a recruiting station, or a tent for children to buy toy planes, yo-yos, and other such toys that would break before they made it home. One scoop of ice cream cost $2.50 and a beer was $4.00 Hats off to the booth that sold coffee for only seventy-five cents! One of the few decent sales tents left in Pennsylvania!

We walked around the field for about half an hour, looking at the six planes they had on display, which were far too small to walk through and look at, all very modern too. There were no planes from previous wars that could be even glanced at. There were planes that weren't even used for military reasons on display. Oh, and the motorcycles! Who ever heard of having a motorcycle contest at an AIR show? They had voting for best looking motorcycles instead of planes. My grandfather was appalled, as were other veterans we chatted with.

The announcer's voice came across the PA system stating that the Air Show was about to begin. We all hurried to the orange line seperating us from the six planes on the runway strip. It cost us $12 a person to get into the gates to even go to the show, if we wanted to sit on a chair, they demanded another five dollars. Granted, I'm young and could sit on the grass for the four hours, but many of the people there were older and could not. Who wants to spend five dollars to sit down and why should they? A person would think they would at least have chairs set up for veterans and their spouses or handicapped persons.

The show started the national anthem as we all stood and a skydiver jumped out of a plane holding the American flag. Following that were four planes taking off. There was one plane flown in WWII, which was nice to see. The other planes were fairly new, and they all zipped around the field four times and landed. No neat formations and not many tricks. Next came another plane, definitely not a military plane, who did tricks for about ten minutes. Following that was another plane, fairly new. The trick plane was next on the list...again! My grandfather looked at me with a very sad face and said it was time to go. There were no big old planes doing formations in groups of 10 lined up. There were no booths that had military badges or paraphenalia to look at. We stopped on the way out to look at the dogtags to which my grandfather told the salesman, "I have these at home, and they are brass. They most certainly did not have decorations on them!"

So for $17.75 cents each, a person could walk around an airport field and look at the outside of a few planes, see about 100 motorcycles, buy a cup of coffee, and even sit down! Would I go again? No, absolutely not. Will my grandfather? He said that he would in hopes that things will be better next year. He needs to go to be with people who served the country just as he did. I just wish that our Air Show was more of a honor to people and planes that served our country instead of a way to scam them. The advertisement said that veterans would be offered a free plane ride, which there was no such ride. There were air-filled jungle gyms for children to play in and many tents with tables and chairs reserved for the media, but absolutely nothing that even remotely came close to thanking people for spending the money to come to the event.