The Vanderhoof International Airshow (VIAS) fly another successful mission, this past weekend, and organizers are now looking forward to improvements.
The event is held every second year, alternating amicably with Quesnel's Skyfest. This was Vanderhoof's year to shine and they brought another significant audience together as they build towards the future.
The VIAS was once one of the most acclaimed airshows in Canada, then fell on hard times to the point it was mothballed indefinitely. But some passionate volunteers and sponsors decided to resurrect Vanderhoof's signature event decades later, and fire up the engines once again in the skies over the Central Interior. This was their third edition in the rebuild.
"We had good weather and the crowds were up. We had 4,500 to 5,000 people in the audience," said announcer and longtime airshow enthusiast Wayne Deorksen.
His personal highlights were the vintage war planes that flew in this year. VIAS had a 1930 de Havilland Tiger Moth biplane, a twin-tail Lockheed P-38 Lightning from the Second World War, a B-25D Mitchell, a Vought F4U Corsair from WW2/Korean War era, and many other spectacles of aviation.
Unlike many airshows, the crowd gets to tour the "hot ramp" which is the main staging area where the planes come and go and park during the performance. Once the shows are all done, the gates are opened for a formal up-close experience for the fans.
"We let the planes and pilots get organized, and then we let the audience come through and ask questions, talk to the pilots and ground crew, get a close look at the planes, and that kind of tour is not done at a lot of airshows, but we can do it in Vanderhoof because of the layout of the airport," said Deorksen.
It is a unique tarmac in another way, too. There is very little else going on in the airspace over Vanderhoof's airport during VIAS. The place is built on a wide open prairie, so sight lines are spacious for the pilots, the approaches are ample, and the ground isn't cluttered with hangars and other buildings on all sides.
"It's a pilot-friendly airport," said Deorksen. "Many pilots qualify themselves here from 800 feet down to 250 feet, because Vanderhoof accommodates that. It gives newer pilots some important experience to advance their careers. They also have a lot of veteran pilots around to mentor them."
When all the work was done, this year, another hot ticket was the dinner and dance in the BID Group hangar. The place was sold out, giving a strong signal from the public that another VIAS in 2018 would be appreciated.
