After a successful Air Show last weekend, 19 Wing is planning on bringing it back to the Comox Valley every two years.
May 18 saw the Comox Air Show take place at 19 Wing Comox, celebrating the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 100-year anniversary in the first show since 2015.
Deputy director of the show Major Ryan Port says they didn’t use any taxpayer funds to support the show, but rather community-driven sponsors.
For prepping the show, he says they shoved almost two years of planning into six months.
“We started this in November, and in fact I wasn’t there until February, and by then it was well underway,” said Port.
“Luckily the Snowbirds and the F-18 are always here in May to do the practice, so we asked if they could stay for the extra day, and they said yes. We worked hard with our allies to the south, the Americans, and all the other air force assets we could get to show up all the last minute, so we were confirming acts right until the week before the show.”
While the Snowbirds were the main attraction, Port says one of the other highlights was the community support for this event, which included providing cars, food, and money, along with free transit for residents to attend the show.
“All of those military volunteers were working on their day off, so Saturday is a day off, it didn’t cost the taxpayers an extra cent to have us working on that day,” said Port.
“What really excited us was that we can showcase the base and what we had to offer in the beautiful skies over BC and over the Comox Valley and to get everybody together.”
He says while they were prepared to host 25,000 people, the rough number of attendees was around 20,000.
They are planning on having the show take place every 2 years, with the goal of making it bigger and better for 2026.
