By Athol Franz
It has been some time since visitors to Oshkosh have been able to see as much ‘heavy iron’ parked on Boeing Plaza throughout the week of AirVenture and what was present was certainly impressive. The theme of this year’s AirVenture was ‘The year of the Tanker’ and there was no doubt that the United States Air Force (USAF) supported AirVenture 2018 with considerable hardware.
New record for South African attendance
As in the past, South Africans are the most visible international visitors to AirVenture each year. However, in 2018 Neil Bowden’s Air Adventure Tours group recorded 237 people camped at the South African campsite, which was also an all-time record. Neil, who is the vice chairman of Johannesburg’s EAA Chapter 322 has been bringing visitors to AirVenture for the past 22 years. In 2003 the South African group established a permanent small shed structure at camp at Camp Scholler, which houses all the equipment required for the comfort of the campers. Apart from several visitors from all over southern Africa and the United Kingdom, 42 members of the Eastern Cape Border Flying Club were in attendance.
