Aero Club of South Africa 'Best Airshow' award

Sponsored by African Pilot

This past four years African Pilot visited most organised airshows in South Africa where points were awarded for the best organised and produced airshow of the year. We also sought the opinion of more than twenty airshow participants to partake in the judging in order to make the judging a fair procedure.

Airshows are judged according to the following criteria:

• Initial planning including ASSA, Aero Club and media communication
• Professional ATC participation: arrival, airshow and departure clearances
• Suitable aircraft and vehicle parking arrangements
• Pilot, airshow and safety briefing including disaster management planning
• Display pilot and participants hospitality arrangements
• Public address systems and appropriate public broadcast entertainment
• Host organisation's social interaction with the display teams, media and important invited guests
• Social responsibility towards the local / regional population
• Youth development programmes including aviation education
• Sales satisfaction for local and distant vendor participants
• Crowd control access, security planning and policing
• Food and beverage arrangements, including an appropriate variety of vendors
• Litter management and cleanliness of the airfield during and immediately after the event
• Overall airshow safety, including any transgressions by individual pilots
• Organiser's airshow report to be submitted to ASSA and the Aero Club of SA

Each of the above fifteen sectors was judged on a scale of 1 to 10. This meant that the maximum points that could be achieved would be 150. Past winners of this prestigious award were:

• Tzaneen in 2005
• Port Elizabeth in 2006
• Tzaneen again in 2007
• Test Flight and Development Centre 2008

African Pilot would like to stress that whilst certain organisers who undertook the task of making their particular airshow an overall success, other organisers compromised the overall safety of their particular event by not attending to the required detail.

Yours sincerely,
Athol Franz
E-mail: editor@africanpilot.co.za