Last Friday, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) announced that AirVenture 2020 has been cancelled. This year would have been NAAA’s fifth appearance since 2016.

AirVenture is held each summer at Wittnam Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wis., and is a weeklong celebration of aviation. Nearly 10,000 aircraft are displayed with more than 800 exhibitors, 1,000 forums and workshops, 4,800 volunteers and more than 600,000 visitors each year.

In an email to AirVenture exhibitors, Jack Pelton, CEO and Chairman of the Board stated:

By this time, we should have begun ramping up our entire site in preparation for our July convention. Volunteers from across the country and world would have descended on Oshkosh. Together they would have formed work parties, our suppliers would begin [to] start setting up tents and infrastructure. But because of circumstances beyond our control, none of this can happen now. We cannot even get to the hangar so our preflight is left to watching the prog charts. While this certainly makes the ability to prepare for the event a scheduling problem, it does not preclude the bigger issue of predicting what will be the health guidelines in July. Right now, there are three phases that have been defined in Wisconsin as the recommended procedures. As I write this, we are not in Phase 1 yet. Phase 2 restricts gatherings to 50 people. Phase 3 allows for mass gathering with restrictions.

Pelton continued:

Our convention attracts EAA members not only from the U.S. but around the world. Today we cannot predict when we will be at a point that our event meets the all clear Phase 3 milestone for mass gathering with restrictions. As your leader, I see no clear path to meet our own requirements to ensure the health and safety expectations our organization demands for our employees, members, volunteers, exhibitors and attendees. That includes sanitization, separation and personal protection requirements.