Last month’s AirVenture broke the decade mark for me. It was my eleventh show. Perhaps my perspective is unusual because I’ve done all those shows as a journalist.
This year was different because I brought my 13-year-old son with me. He’s aposter child for next-generation aviators: He’s a fanatic about all craft that fly, has aspirations of flying for the military, spends hours flying uber-realistic combat simulators and GA simulators, and is slowly accumulating real-world stick time as schedule and budget allows.
As we cruised around the show together, sometimes with him assisting my journalistic tasks and other times just taking in the scene, I captured bits and pieces on my phone camera. The resulting video is available here. The non-surprising summary is that the experiences that mattered most were the ones he felt most connected to: learning more about the aircraft he flies on the sim and engaging with people in the context of airplanes—particularly vets.
It’s worth pointing out that these sims aren’t simple first-person shooters in the air. They’re replications where getting thestart sequence wrong will flood the engine (or overheat it or who knows what) and your mission won’t even get off the ground. Once you do get off the ground, you must know the combat technique for each aircraft. I don’t mean Zeros turn better that P-38s, or even that a MiG-15 can’t chase you supersonic.I mean picking out in a flash that the enemy has an Me-109G rather than a D, so keep your energy state up because of the G’s higher horsepower and high-altitude performance.
That depth means the information he wants can only come from geek-to-geek interaction with experts. (I use “geek” with the utmost respect here.) He also wants the connection with people who’ve had the experience he’s emulating at home. That’s why it’s pilots and vets. He has admiration and respect for both. Finally, he’s itching to put these new bits of information into practice. The most frustrating thing for him at the show was how few chances there were to fly something, even simulated or remote.
All this brings me around to the blog title: AirVenture 2026. I’ve come to believe bringing future aviators into our aviation universe is a doomed effort because it has so little connection to their aviation universe. It’s also not a matter of just providing a bunch of sims for kids brought through the gates primarily to see the airshow.
The deepest pool of future real-world aviators is in the sprawling archipelago of combat gaming pilots, sim pilots, drone pilots and RC pilots, as well as the readers of aviation media who feel the draw but have no place to connect that feeling to their personal activities. If we want their attention and dollars in this industry, we need to give them a place front and center. We need to invite them in as fellow aviators, rather than relegated to a drone cage on the side or with no place to trycombat techniques evolved after talking to a real-world P-51 pilot.
I see two competing visions for AirVenture 2026. In one, at the crossroads of Knapp Ave and Celebration Way, the Pilot Proficiency Center still stands, but across the street is the Virtual Proficiency Center where the “kids” whose YouTube channels have millions of subscribers give their talks on Korean-War-era aerial combat and virtual pilots fly serious multiplayer all in one real room. On another corner, drone pilots give their talks and RC flyers get face time with real-world Predator pilots.Or whatever a Predator is called 10 years from now.
On the fourth corner is the “hangar,” where all these groups can cross paths, swap stories and hear informal talks by aviators of all origins. The lifeblood of any community is connection. If we want to connect with the greater community of aviators — and we want them spending time and money in our world of pilots physically on board aircraft that actually leave the ground — we need to meet them at least halfway.
I have a competing vision for 2026. I won’t share that here, because it’s not a pretty picture. It’s not a place a 13-year-old enthusiast could spend a week and still not see it all. It’s not a place rich with potential stories for journalists like myself. It’s not a place I’d look forward to in 2027.
But my son is game for AirVenture 2017, so it seems there’s still time.
