Largest aviation event in the world continues through Thursday

The largest aviation event in the world — so far in 2020 — is happening right now online.

The Socially Distant Air Show, being livestreamed over Facebook Live and YouTube, features the air show world’s biggest stars — in brand new videos — along with commentary from the industry’s top air show announcers, Matt Jolley, Ric Peterson, and Rob Reider.

The three-day event — a fundraiser for the International Council of Air Shows Foundation — will wrap up Thursday with a performance from the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.

But before that, the show kicked off Tuesday with a video from air show pilot Adam Baker showing fans what he’s been doing during the shelter-in-place restrictions, followed by a demonstration of the F-35. Other performances included a Belgian Air Force F-16 solo display, the SHOCKWAVE jet truck, Rob Holland, Bill Stein, Mike Wiskus, and many more.

“We will have literally dozens of performers throughout the three days and eight countries represented,” Reider reports. 

Performers coming up in day two and three include the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, Patty Wagstaff, Sean Tucker, the Aeroshell Aerobatic Team, Michael Goulian, the Patrouille Suisse, the Czech Air Force’s Grippen jet fighter solo display, the Patrouille de France, and many more. Closing out the virtual show will be a new video from the Thunderbirds.

Missed Tuesday’s show? Don’t worry, you can catch it on LiveAirShowTV’s YouTube channel. That’s also where you can watch Wednesday and Thursday’s shows, as well as on Facebook live (although on Tuesday they were having some technical glitches on Facebook, while YouTube ran quite smoothly).

And as interesting as the performances are, almost more interesting are the comments scrolling down the side of the screen from viewers all over the world, including Pakistan, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and more.

The idea for the online air show came from the men behind the Show Center podcast — Jolley, Peterson and Reider — who found themselves out of work as air shows around the country are cancelled and postponed. 

“When we found ourselves the victims of the coronavirus — as so many others — we thought, ‘we’re out of work,’” said Reider. “But there are some people in our business who depend on this in a big way. And without work, some of them could be in a world of hurt.”

All proceeds from the fundraiser will be used by the ICAS Foundation to help air show professionals who have been put out of work during the crisis.

Donating is easy. Viewers can text Give to 571-206-8886 or go to ICASFoundation.org to donate.

Besides the individual donations, aviation companies have stepped up to donate to the foundation, including Lockheed Martin, Lucas Oil Products, Geico, and others.

Reider notes that the foundation will be in charge of dispersing the funds to air show performers and workers impacted by the cancellations.

“We just want to raise whatever we can to help our family,” he notes.

Like anything else online, the first day of the event had some technical glitches, but for the most part ran quite smoothly. The three air show announcers credit LiveAirShowTV’s Jeff Lee and his son Brian with that, noting they have been working very hard in the past week to make the fundraiser a reality.

Jeff is handling technical cues over Zoom with the three air show announcers — who are in Ontario, Canada, Ohio, and Georgia — while Brian is at Fort Rucker in Alabama, which is on lockdown because of the coronavirus.

“So Jeff is talking on a separate Skype channel to Brian and giving us our cues on Zoom,” Reider reports.

The fourth on-screen personality is Stephanie Stricklen, who is in California, and she’s handling the social media aspects of the event.

Today and Thursday’s air shows kick off at 3 p.m. Eastern and run through 5 p.m. if you want to catch them live.