Aircraft Judging Aircraft Judging - Here is your chance to see how your beautiful plane stands up to the competition. Choose your class, but choose wisely, lots of folks spend all year getting ready for the show. There are nine (9) classes in the judging, not counting People's Choice (popular vote) and these classes are listed at the bottom of the page under Aircraft Judging.
Spot/Precision Parking Spot Parking - Seems easy enough! Park your right main on a spot or maybe try some precision parking placement. It changes some years to keep you on your toes (and brakes!)! This is one of those definite crowd pleasers and is fun to compete in and to watch.
Rigged Proflight Rigged Preflight - We all preflight before each flight, right? Come and try your luck(?) at this. Our friendly judges set up a plane with known faults and you get 3-5 minutes (time) to locate all you can. Winner is the person who finds the most. But beware, these judges can be tricky! Thinking about buying a grumman, see if they will use your candiate plane in the competition and get a free pre-purchase out of the deal.
Precision Taxi Precision Taxi - This is the grand winner of Fun-to-Watch. Thanks to our Austrilian members for this wonderful game that has been a mainstay at convention since 1996 (Thanks Maggie!) Sounds simple enough, taxi through a course using your nose wheel to break a few eggs. Come on down and see the fun. Put your fears at rest, these eggs do not show up for breakfast!
Broken Towbar Broken Towbar - Our wonderful planes have a free-castering nose wheel. So you forgot you towbar, or is it broken? No worries, you get to push the plane back through a severly twisted course (designed by a twisted mind) and go for the best time. It's easy! It's fun (to watch that is). Rest easy, there is a men's and women's division in this competition (the only such one in the entire AYA).
Cockpit Cool Cockpit Cool - Taught by CFI's and run by our PFP Director, 'Lou Evans', this is a fun course for the non-flying spouses to take. You will learn the basic of reading aircraft instruments, how to read and understand a chart, and if you are truly brave, go up in your plane with an instructor and learn how get it safely on the ground. It is a great confidence builder and adds a layer of insurance to you and your spouse flying. It is wonderful to know that in an emergency, you could take the plane and get it to an airport and put it down.
Name That Part Name That Part - We're all educated owners. We know the parts that make our planes. Or do we? Garner each year goes into the parts bins a pulls some that you may not have seen. Beware, we sometimes put in a tie-breaker bolt from his tractor. There are 2 classes, owner and Guru.
Map Folding Map Folding - This is another crowd pleaser (fun to watch). First appeared at Blue Ash in 2001 and it sounds simple, the canopy is open and you and your team have to fold a map. There is a fan that simulates the wind and volunteers add their own speicial touches (turbulence, rain, fog, etc).
Swap Shop Swap Shop - If you have been working on your plane, bring your old parts to convention, price them and put them on the table. Someone else may be looking for that part. Deals abound on this table.
Vendors Vendors - Our valuable vendors attend each year and some drag parts with them. If not possible to actually provide parts, then they have a flyer with convention specials (found on deals page as a download). So if you buy from Garner, hold on to it, as you can see here, he may 'reacquire' that part!
    Aircraft Judging
    • Best in Show
    • Best 4-Place, Pre-90’s
    • Best Tiger, 90’s Forward
    • Best 2-Place
    • Best Cougar
    • Best exterior
    • Best Interior
    • Best Avionics Suite
    • Best Firewall Forward

  • Aircraft Weighing
  • Some years (and this is one) we have a set of calibrated scales and can tell you what your bird weighs and calculate a new CG for your paperwork. Convention special price from Roscoe.
  • Dynamic Prop Balance
  • We just so happen to have a prop balance tool this year and Brad will be happy (for a fee) to check your prop balance and get you all smoothed out.
  • Avionics Check
  • Brad also has a analyser that can simulate signals to test your VOR, LOC, ILS and other items.
  • Tach Check
  • For those of you who still have mechanical tachs, we have an optical reader that can let you know how much your tach is off. This helps you get back to flying book numbers or maybe you decide to buy an electronic tach.