Sport Pilot Talk

Did anybody attend Deland this year and how was it? Still not sure why we need to have two shows within a couple of months of each other in South Florida.

c162pilot wrote:Still not sure why we need to have two shows within a couple of months of each other in South Florida.

Simple. The Sebring employee who used to head up Sport Aviation Expo got a new job in Deland, where she was tasked with duplicating her previous success. I'm not sure if the industry is large enough to benefit from competition; time will tell.

I went to both last year, skipped Deland this year. Family stuff going on and couldn't carve out the time. I hope Deland makes a go of it; I'd love to have a couple of good shows here, but I'm skeptical the market can support both of them.

Sebring is a larger and better show, but Deland probably has a better location, being close to Orlando and Daytona and not too far from Jacksonville.

I also flew over to Deland from KZPH on Thursday, the first day of the show as I was going to be out of town the other days. It was bigger than last year and still growing I think. There were a few more vendors and many, many aircraft on display. I arrived first thing in the morning, I think I was the 3rd to land, my radio and ADS-B was buzzing with a lot of other traffic. It was a lighter day since it was the first day but overall a very good show and will only get better I think.

Shawn