The air show season for the Inland Empire is nearing with Riverside kicking off on March 27. About a month later March ARB will host their show…or so we hope.
Read our Riverside Air Show Preview Here.
Riverside Air Show Update – Nothing in the schedule has changed with a little over a week left. Long Range forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70’s. More weather updates as the show gets closer.
March ARB Airfest, Long Range Preview – The show at March has been up-in-the-air ever since the Thunderbirds revealed that March ARB will not be on their demonstration schedule. This left us without a major demo team, and concerns that the show would be canceled. The Patriots demonstration team stepped up and will now highlight the show in their first visit to the base. TODAY: The ACC (Air Combat Command) released the May schedule of demonstrations, confirming the F-15E East and F-22 East Demo’s for March ARB. This is very good news as had March not been able to land these two demos the show would be in jeopardy of being canceled.
We decided to compare the two Inland air shows:
First we look at the number of performances, this is based on the schedules as of the writing of this post. Includes flying demonstrations, fly-bys, ground demos, jet-cars and parachute teams, and previews – does not count opening ceremonies.
Riverside: 21 (16 Civilian, 5 Military)
March: 17 (10 Civilian, 7 Military)
Now a look at show times:
Riverside: 10am-4pm (Approx 6 hours)
March: 10am-3pm (Approx 5 hours)
As you can see, the show times just about match the number of performances. With the Size of the base, March is setting up to be left in the dust by Riverside. Keep in mind, Riverside is a single-day show, while March is planning for two days. Next, we take a look at the hour by hour performance breakdown of each show.
10am-11am:
Riverside: 4 Performances
March: 3 Performances
11am-12pm:
Riverside: 4 Performances
March: 4 Performances
12pm-1pm:
Riverside: 3 Performances
March: 3 Performances
1pm-2pm:
Riverside: 3 Performances
March: 3 Performances (if you count the C-17 Ground and air demo separate)
2pm-3pm:
Riverside: 4 Performances
March: 3 Performances
3pm-4pm:
Riverside: 4 Performances
March: 1 Performance (F-22 Demo)
What can we take from this comparison? Riverside has a great line-up of performances, and by far is the most action-packed by the hour. March is gearing up to be a slow and steady show. Good or Bad? It’s bad in that March may not draw a good crowd over the two days, maybe a single day show would be better. It’s good in that the overall crowd will be fairly thin (Good for us photographers), and that a slower and steady schedule is more predictable and less likely to run into delays.
We will be keeping an eye on the developments for both shows. We will also have a formal preview of the March ARB show following the Riverside air show.
