This year’s visit to the canadian aviation expo was absent of gaffes but also of gawks.

We squished five-and-a-half people into GXRP on Sunday morning, and headed over to the Oshawa municipal airport for this annual event. While in previous years we drove over, this time we took the plane, just for the change.

Special air traffic procedures were in effect to guide the expected hundreds of visiting airplanes into a single slow arrival queue. GXRP has rarely flown as slowly (at “blue line” speed, at the point of safety discomfort) as during the last ten minutes of this flight. The expected hundreds turned out to be just a few dozen this day, so we did not have to negotiate Oshkosh-level aerial crowds.

Unfortunately, the trip rather than the destination was worthy of note. The expo event itself was disappointing:

• steep cash-only admission fees, not discounted for fly-in or COPA-membership visitors, like in previous years
• lack of well-signed ticketing/entry/exit points
• burly-acting air cadets on security guard duty
• no baby-needs facilities, despite a good number present
• entire exhibition small enough to cover it in two hours at a slow (infant walk limited) speed
• not enough airplane traffic to wow fans

• no special staple displays: old or large airplanes; perhaps they all left on Saturday

As much as it pains me to pan anything aviation related, this just was not worth the time. It was neither as cute & social as weekend fly-ins at many small airports, nor as meaty as the US events being grasped toward (Oshkosh and Sun&Fun).