When I woke Kaylee up this morning, she looked like a wild woman with her puffy eyes and her hair sprayed out in all directions. She was tired, but that's no shock--we're all tired! Poor Steve and Chuck ran around all day putting things back to "right". We're still working on counting things up, but early indications surprised both Steve and I. See, this seemed to be a quieter year than previous years. Sunday was very quiet, in fact. We did about half the T-6 rides of the previous few years, and a quarter fewer regular rides, but we almost doubled on helicopter rides, doubled on the church service donations, corporate and personal donations, even the chili dinner made more. We expected this to be a light year, and that was okay too, because we are there to have fun, raise awareness, have a lovely safe weekend, and whatever funds come in for SMA Support will be put to good use. Instead, we found that fewer people donated more money, and our current not-finalized-yet-total? $13,527.15. That's amazing, it really is. It does a heart good.
This has also been a rough summer for the airshow community. Just over our BBQ Bash weekend the racer P-51 crashed into the crowd at Reno, and the impact has been devastating on people, the community, and aviation in general, let alone the family and loved ones of those who died there. I saw a few videos of it, but one that is not widely circulated was only a few rows away from the impact, and hearing that Mustang come screaming down at approximately 107" mp, it sounded like a missile, a bomb, and I can't get the sound out of my head and I wasn't even there. The very next day an airshow pilot crashed inexplicably in WV in a warbird routine, killing just himself. That same day a friend lost the engine on his T-6 on takeoff and crashed into trees/field at the end of a grass strip. He thankfully will recover with at least leg injuries, not sure of the full extent yet. That's in one weekend. There have been many this season. Even pilots are arguing amongst themselves, talking about banning the only air race in the world because of one accident in 47 years that harmed a spectator. Pilots are arguing amongst themselves about whether or not there should be a "stand down" of air shows, stopping them altogether while people try to figure out how to make something that is inherantly riskier than sitting in your barclounger safe "enough". Even though each accident had a different cause, people want to create rules or laws to make sure it never happens again. But how do you legislate "they are human and made a mistake." Or "part of his airplane failed and he could not recover"? Believe me, everyone in aviation wants to go home to their families. I'm all for learning from these accidents and trying to do better, but I am not for bubble-wrapping the world and outlawing things in a knee-jerk reaction. Some people-even a few pilots-are saying that air racers should not be allowed to race at all, just for their own safety. Since when do we get to dictate what choices somebody else makes to keep them from maybe hurting themselves? (Besides those pesky seat belt laws *eyeroll*) I just read a joke based on reality that said that the Centers for Disease Control say that tripping over your pets causes over 86,000 serious injuries each year. You can't protect everyone from every potential harm, and one spectator accident in 47 years of racing...a few seconds sooner or later and his plane would have hit desert. It was a tragic accident. They all are. We need to take them seriously, look at them, learn from them, but people need to stop panicking. Especially pilots...
Here's an article by Patty Wagstaff on her view of the Reno accident-if you're on Facebook you should be able to see it, I think.
Anyway. I've got plenty to do prior to heading out of town for a few days here for a convention. Off and running tomorrow morning with several flights, starting 9 a.m. and going through to 10 p.m. Here we go! :) I'll let you know more about the BBQ Bash results as we get them done. Again--people out here are amazing, and I couldn't be more proud of our group...
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