The season opening weekend had beautiful weather. Yet, the number in attendance on Sunday, the day I visited, was low.

Despite the bright beautifully hot day that it was, the air show ended very dismally. Jim Hare the announcer filled us in with the decision of the trustees, not to fly the Jenny, and the DVII. They have been officially retired. The only WW1 plane which will continue to fly at this time is the SPAD. There was some announcement that the Albatros will fly again, in a few weeks. As for the Triplane, I doubt it will fly due to its touchy nature. There is no one at ORA qualified, in my opinion, to fly it. The reason for the retirements was stated to be unaffordable insurance costs.

I am assuming that means they don't have the money to insure those planes for flying. But, it could mean that the costs have increased so phenomenally to have risen to the same level as the insurance for the Spirit of St. Louis. Remember the excuse that it cost way more for the Spirit?

So, there will be no more WW1 dog fight demonstrations. The Black Baron is grounded, for now. Maybe his insurance is unaffordable. Sir Percy likewise will not fly the skies looking to shoot down his arch enemy. Even Pierre Loop de Loop appears to grounded. I guess that means WW1 flying at ORA will be forgotten, a lost art; not that it hasn't been fairly lost the last couple of years.

If the Bleriot can be made to run, it will join the Hanriot in demonstrating Pioneer flight. But don't forget that the Curtiss Pusher has been retired and that could be the fate of the Bleriot.

Since they didn't even try to run the Caudron, I guess that they haven't been able to get it to start. It was very troublesome last year; running on only 7 cylinders.

Based upon the cost of insurance, if the AVRO and the Fledgling return from restoration, most likely they too will be retired.

The money making New Standard is not flying and not likely to do so for awhile, if at all. So the friendly skies over Rhinebeck will be silent on Saturdays and Sundays, except for the brief flights of the Tiger Moth,The Segalla Cub, and two Great Lakes Trainers.

All the players in the WW1 drama are so young. Some of the soldiers are teenagers and younger. The Black Baron hardly looked old enough to shave, much less be a German Ace pilot. Likewise for Sir Percy. The only adult was Madame FiFi.

Last year the Pyrotechnics was taking a huge turn for the better. Today we are back to the shotgun and smoke bombs. They no longer blowup the out-house or the Black Baron.

The show itself was so disjointed and slow that many people were up and leaving before the end. There used to be so much history to demonstrate that the Saturday and Sunday shows were completely different. Now it is the same for both days. As for the crowd, it was small.

The Museum's stores are getting very bare. The one at the airfield didn't even have a copy of Cole Palen's Flying Circus. No tee shirts for the kids. Racks and shelves look like they haven't been restocked in over a year. The air conditioning wasn't running which was enough in itself to discourage anyone from staying long enough to buy anything.

Apparently, Bill Horrigan is gone for good. And Tom Daly had more important things to do than to be present as the Air Show Director. That responsibility fell on Jim Record's shoulders.

Not mush else to say, except it was a very dismal day despite the fair weather.

There are now two different shows. Saturday is more of "History of Flight," and Sunday is a rendition of Cole Palen's WW1 parody.

On Saturday:
The Bleriot was runup, and it spit, sputtered, backfired and puffed a continuous cloud of oil smoke. The reason given for not flying it was that the engine needed break-in time.

The Jenny, no longer flown, was taxi'd. It initially refused to start properly on a half dozen or more attempts. Each time it fired in reverse rotation. Finally, when it did start in the correct rotation, it coughed and backfired repeatedly. Even after a brief warm-up, it ran ragged with an occasional backfire. I also noted that there was something resembling cooling fluid residue (dirty water) on the bottom tank of the radiator. An earlier comment that the Jenny was flown during the week, left me wondering if the pilot didn't understand that the flying time on this plane is limited due to an under-sized radiator (It has an OX-5 radiator which is smaller than one for a Hispano-Suiza engine). A knowing pilot told me years ago that the plane could only be flown for about fifteen minutes on hot days (including warm-up time) before the temperature guage began to show hot. Severely overheating of the Hispano-Suiza, whether accidental or through negligence, would cause permanent damage, requiring an overhaul. Maybe the truth will become known. It could be that lack of proper maintenance is the cause for the Jenny's problematic engine.

The Caudron refused intially to start, but when it did, it only ran up to speed and then quit. Just before stopping it would catch and run up to speed again, only to quit. It did this for about ten times before the demonstartion was halted. It was unable to taxi.

The crowd was good, perhaps as many as a thousand or more people. But, like many other shows previously, people were leaving before the end. Following the show, the RC model demonstrations were aborted due to an incoming storm.

After the Museum closed, the Hall-Scott engine in the Curtiss "D" Pusher was swapped for an OX-5. The earlier reason given for retiring the Curtiss was a fatigued valve train, per Chad Wille in 2004. No further information is available at this time.

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