Thousands Attend Spirit Of Aviation Week

EAA saw more than 266,000 people connect for streaming and on-demand content during its five-day virtual Spirit of Aviation Week event. 15,000 people attended the event’s 51 forums and its online workshops hosted 10,000 participants. EAA launched Spirit of Aviation Week, which was held July 21-25, following the cancellation of its annual AirVenture fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“Tremendous credit goes to more than 50 EAA staffers who combined to make this work, along with the hundreds of EAA members, aviation community members, and business partners who quickly stepped forward to contribute their time and knowledge to make this happen in little more than three months,” said EAA CEO Jack Pelton. “While Spirit of Aviation Week certainly was not a replacement for the in-person experience that is AirVenture each year, it was very successful in bringing together the flying community in a way that had never before been attempted.”

800 exhibitors participated in Spirit of Aviation Week’s virtual expo and EAA’s Pilot Proficiency Center held 25 Tech Talk sessions attended by more than 8,200 people. An estimated 10,800 FAA WINGS credits were issued between the Center sessions and event forums. As previously reported by AVweb, nearly 1,100 pilots tackled the Oshkosh approach virtually via SimVenture.