Volunteer Newsletter Feb 2013 - Copy

Volunteer Newsletter
Abbotsford International Airshow Society
February 2013
Volume 1, Issue 1
R on An n ou n c e s h is Re t i r e m e n t
At the end of the November AIAS Board of Directors
meeting, Airshow President Ron Price announced his
retirement from his position effective March 31st. With
great reluctance, the Board has accepted his resignation.
Ron was the visionary founding chairman behind the trade
show “Airshow Canada” starting in 1988 and he
encouraged the Province of BC to build the Tradex in
Abbotsford for tradeshow use. When the Airshow Society
got into financial difficulty in 1998, Ron stepped to the fore
and successfully steered the Airshow back into the black,
culminating in the celebration of the Airshow’s 50th
Anniversary show in 2012. He leaves the Society in great
shape, along with the well wishes of the hundreds of
volunteers who have served in producing successful
shows for those 50 years.
2013 Airshow
Highlights:
• RCAF Snowbirds & Cdn
Army Skyhawks are
confirmed for 2013
• CF-18 Hornet demo
team returning.
• Rob Holland brings his
‘gang’, the 4ce to Abby
skies
• Smoke-n-Thunder jet
Airshow President, Ron Price has served
dragster appearing
the AIAS in various roles for over 25 years
• Bob Singleton hands over
Ron’s community achievements were recently recognized
when he was presented with the Order of Abbotsford, BC
Aviation Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award and was
Abbotsford’s Citizen of the Year for 2012.
the mike to H2A2
• Our favourite “pyro
chick” April Z will be
heating it up again.
In this issue:
Letter from the new Prez
2
Bob Singleton retires
from airshow duty
4
Featured Performers
3
Volunteer Issues
2
New President Appointed
Longtime Air Boss for the Abbotsford Airshow, Jim Reith was
appointed by the Board to assume the duties of President
effective April 1st. Jim has a long history with this show and
helped to open it in 1977 while flying a CF-101 Voodoo with 409
AW(F) Squadron, then returned as a Snowbird pilot in 1979
flying the Second Line Astern position on the team. He recently
retired following a 30 year airline career with Air Canada where
he was a Captain on the Airbus A320 . Jim has been a volunteer
on the Abbotsford Flying Events team since 1999 and has served
as the Air Boss from 2001 onwards. The Air Boss at
Abbotsford sits in the tower with the Nav Canada controllers
directing airshow operations and coordinating the show with
airline arrivals/departures and tanker base operations
Letter from
The
New President
Volunteers;
Serving as a volunteer at the Abbotsford
International Airshow has been a labour
of love for me as I suspect it has for
most of you. The excitement of the
show each year and being able to contribute in some small way to its success
has provided a great deal of satisfaction.
Volunteers:
Make sure your information
is up to date
Win a Prize!
Volunteers, the Volunteer Application Form for 2013
is now up on the airshow website:
www.abbotsfordairshow.com
Please make sure all your information with us up to
date and complete and let us know that you plan to be
back for the 2013 show. For everyone who either
submits a new 2013 form or calls the office to update
their information, we will enter their names into a
draw for certificates to obtain 2 tickets to an event at
the Abbotsford Event Centre (unfortunately Heat tix
are excluded). We will give away several certificates
at the end of March.
Committee chairs—please let us know about
your areas of responsibility and the need for
more volunteers, if applicable.
Volunteers should know that we do have needs
for some activities outside of airshow week.
For example, our grounds and facilities people
will be conducting some work parties on weekends preceding the show to spruce up our
buildings and get them ready for the show. If
you feel you could wield a paintbrush or a hammer, let the office know that you would be
willing to help out.
Now a new challenge awaits me and I
am aware that I have some pretty big
shoes to fill. Ron Price has been a
great President for the airshow for
many, many years and has inspired many
of you to continue contributing your
talents to this collective effort. I hope
to emulate his model of valuing our
volunteers and encouraging them at all
times so that we can continue to produce great airshows.
I believe that communications with our
volunteers are a very important part of
continuing to value your contributions.
This newsletter is one way that we can
keep you “in the picture” and that you
in turn, will be ambassadors for the
show. We will try to produce at least a
couple more newsletters between now
and showtime so that you will be kept
up to speed on what is happening.
Once again I want to thank you for your
past contributions and ask for your patience as I both get to know all of you
and learn all the aspects of the new job.
Together I know we can do great
things.
Sincerely,
Jim Reith
Incoming President
Abbotsford Int’l Airshow
Sequestration?
Manfred’s Ballet
What the heck is that?
in Blue
When you look at the list of confirmed performers, you will note that there are no US
military aircraft listed. That is due to some
severe budget cuts that are being imposed on
the US DoD as a result of sequestration.
Airshows in the modern age are inherently
very noisy places with jet noise, thundering
afterburners, the bass notes of a big radial
engine or the high pitched sound of a 400 hp
aerobatic engine. Maybe that’s one of the
things that attracts us to airshows.
In 2011 Congress passed the Budget Control
Act which contained a provision that calls for
significant across-the-board cuts in spending
in most areas of the US budget if the two
parties were not able to reach an agreement
on tax increases/spending cuts to meet certain targets. The deadline was to have been
Dec. 31st, 2012 but it was delayed slightly to
March of this year.
Confirmed Performers
♦
RCAF Snowbirds
♦
Cdn. Army Skyhawks
♦
CF-18 Hornet demo & Canadian Forces
Tactical Assault demo
♦
Manfred Radius—Salto Sailplane
♦
The 4ce—a four ship of aerobatic performers: Rob Holland, Bill Stein, Matt Chapman
and Jack Knutson
♦
AV8FX Pyro
♦
Vintage Wings P-40 Kittyhawk
♦
Smoke-n-Thunder Jet Car
♦
Heritage Flight Museum P-51 Mustang & A-1
Skyraider
♦
Heritage Flight Foundation Spitfire
♦
Canadian Museum of Flight Cabin Waco,
Tigermoth, Harvard
♦
Ace Maker T-33 Silver Star—Greg “Wired”
Colyer
♦
H2A2—Hafeli & Hildebrandt airshow announcers
Most observers now agree that these
“sequestered cuts” will take effect. In the
military, payroll is exempt but everything else
is subject to a significant cut. Senior leadership of all three services, USAF, USN and
USMC have stated that airshow support will
be one of the casualties of the sequestration
cuts.
Abbotsford had been selected by Air Combat
Command to host the F-22 Raptor demo
team in 2013 and similarly, the US Navy had
selected Abby for the FA-18 Super Hornet
demo. Both of these are now likely to be
cancelled. Both the Blue Angels and the
Thunderbirds will have their seasons cancelled as well and furthermore, there will be
no static display aircraft from the US military
allowed to go to any shows.
But when was the last time that you suddenly
heard . . . well, silence . . . followed by classical symphonic music. You looked up and see
a beautiful ballet in blue being performed in
the sky by a Salto sailplane piloted by none
other than the incomparable Manfred Radius.
Swooping and rolling while streaming smoke
from both wingtips, Manfred guides his craft
through the aerobatic box. I am always reminded of the words of Gillespie Magee’s
“High Flight”: Sunward I’ve climbed and joined
the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds and done a
hundred things you have not dreamed of —
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit
silence.
Manfred will be bringing the magic of that
silent ballet back to Abbotsford in 2013.
Volunteer B-B-Q Set for June 22nd
As usual there will be opportunities for flights—hopefully the
weather will be more cooperative
than last year and these flights will
actually land back at the same
airport!
There will also be drawings for
The Airshow annual volunteer
prizes of various kinds and a
appreciation barbeque is set for
briefing on the upcoming 2013
Saturday, June 22nd so mark your Airshow performances.
calendars and plan to attend.
Please make sure that your teleThis is an important event where
phone number and email addresswe get to recognize the contribuThe Smoke-n-Thunder Jet Car weighs 2300 pounds but has 6,000 lbs of
es are up to date with the office
tion made by literally hundreds of
thrust from an afterburning jet aircraft engine which propels the car to
staff. Call Kate at 604-852-8511
speeds of up to 400 mph. Pilot Bill Braack is experiencing 4.5 G’s from the
volunteers who help make the
acceleration.
Abbotsford Airshow work.
Through your efforts we have
achieved 50 years of safe and suc- B o b S i n g l e t o n h a n d s ov e r t h e m i ke t o H 2 A 2
cessful events, a milestone that
very few airshows have ever
If there is an individual
group. He started
achieved. We look forward to
who could truly be
assisting Bob & Roy
many more exciting airshows to
described as a fixture of
with announcing
come.
the Abbotsford Airshow, it
duties in 2007 and
would be announcer Bob
together with Roy as
Singleton
who
has
been
H2A2, they have been
We’re on the web
describing
loops,
tumbles
presenting airshows
www.abbotsfordairshow.com
and lomcevaks for the
throughout western
crowd since 1969.
Canada & the US for
the past several years.
there needs to be a second
Following the successful 50th
voice to provide variety, and a
Anniversary show in August,
We all wish Bob the very best
break
for
the
announcer’s
vocal
Bob gave notice that he was
in his ‘retirement’ from
cords!
finally “hanging up the mike”,
airshow announcing. We are
confident that he was leaving
sure that our crowd and our
Ken Hildebrandt, who is also
Singleton Tower in good hands
volunteers will be well served
Executive Director of Gallery 7
with the announcer pairing of
by H2A2.
Theatre company, is an airplane
Roy Hafeli & Ken Hildebrandt
buff and has been a long time
Roy & Ken have been assisting volunteer for the Flying Events
1464 Tower Street
Bob with announcing duties for
Abbotsford, BC
years. Roy actually got his first
Canada V2T 6H5
job in radio from Bob Singleton
as an Abbotsford kid. Coming
Tel: 604-852-8511
home from school, he would
Fax: 604-852-6093
head over to the radio station
and do a couple of hours onair. Since 1999, he has shared
the airshow announcers’ tower
and the microphone with Bob.
With an airshow that typically
Abby.Airshow
lasts for seven hours a day,