Anyone living in Batavia, and certainly those in the vicinity of Genesee County Airport, would have heard the unmistakable engine sounds of airplanes and jets zooming overhead Friday afternoon and evening as performers rehearsed and pivoted for media in preparation for the Wings Over Batavia Air Show this weekend.
Organizers and county leaders were at the airport excitedly anticipating the two-day event. While much of the focus, understandably, zeroes in on the performers and acts, county Legislative Chair Shelley Stein says there are other aspects to be considered.
"This air show is about pride in our community and what we can put together as a group of individuals,” Stein said Friday evening at the airport on Saile Drive. “You don't really have to be an airplane aficionado to appreciate the artistry in the sky and the fact that it's a family event, right? So, the kiddos get in for free when you have a parent buying a ticket. It's affordable. It is imaginative here, and it encourages kids to think about flying as a career. You can't help but catch a little bit of a bug here for the kids. So it's just engaging on all levels for our community.”
Although the event has done well in drawing locals and encouraging them to sign up as “Bataviators” for an online newsletter to get updates about the show, it also benefits the community by driving others here to Batavia, Stein said.
“To see our communities, our community center here, and as they come through, they're looking at our downtowns, they're looking at our small villages, they're checking us out from every angle,” she said. “And, of course, there's always that spending that happens in the community. So we're appreciative of the gas tax, not just the gas tax, but the sales tax throughout the community that gets paid from all of our visitors.
"We know that our hoteliers have said that they've got blocks of rooms that have been blocked out for months getting ready for this air show. We've got visitors from all over Canada, California, Pennsylvania," she said. "It's exciting for us to have somebody else bringing dollars into our communities. You know, I just can't say enough thanks and appreciation to the leadership team here that put on the Wings of Batavia, and the hospitality of Pete and Doreen Zeliff is absolutely incredible. What a gift they are to our community.”
Photo by Jim Burns
Father-son duo Ken and Austin Rieder, with their show, Red Line Air Shows, based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, were ready with their Vans RV-8 aircraft, specially built by Ken, with four so far with a fifth one in the works.
“We have modified them in a few ways, but they are subtle modifications, and it's just for increased performance for us, for what we're doing, obviously inverted oil and inverted fuel systems so we can fly upside down,” Austin said. “But beyond that, it's just kind of, we have it specially set up for us, and then also for a night show, fireworks show that we do. So we're a tight, precision formation team, and what we try to do is we're looking for more of like a ballet or a very specialized, smooth performance. Both of our airplanes are there as they are aerobatic, but they're not as aerobatic as maybe another airplane extra or a Pitts or, you know, an MXS.”
No matter what they’re not, these aircraft promise an adrenaline-rushing demonstration that will keep everyone on their toes. Ken said it takes skill and maneuvering, for sure, and good communication back and forth.
“I do all the talking. Since I'm flying the lead position, I'm responsible for setting up the position, the timing, what maneuver we're gonna do, where we're located within the box, and our aerobatic area. And he makes me look good,” he said. “All I have to be is very predictable for him to be able to match what I'm doing. And that's the whole deal. So we've done this same routine for the last three years, and quite honestly, I've done that for the ten or more before that the exact same routine. So he expects me to snake certain calls at certain times, and the only times he'll speak up is if I got a little too much power in or if I'm creeping away. Or, you know, we're trying to match timing. Tally, Tally, meaning, I see you, you see me, those kind of things.”
Austin described it personally as a lot of fun for him.
“It's a different element than just flying solo by yourself, especially flying with your dad. That's another added bonus. But it's just super enjoyable to be sitting on somebody else's wing while they're flying a maneuver, and you're just trying to mirror it to the best you can,” he said. “What I like is that a difference from a solo performance is we take up the whole view from somebody from corner of the box to corner of the box, old runway position.
"So we want to kind of fill the whole space for a spectator to see what's going on. You know, you can be at one end of the box or the other and still get the same performance throughout the whole thing," he said. "A lot of the maneuvers we’re doing opposing or opposite from each other. And then, obviously, we're doing a whole lot of things together too.”
Ken was the first in his family to learn to fly and has been doing aerobatics for 38 years now. When he first started out, he said a 21-year-old Ken started aerobatics after buying a book to learn about the maneuvers and did rolls and loops before he knew it. This was way before YouTube "tutorials" were available.
He recalled how Austin “was probably three years old climbing up onto my lap watching ‘Wings’ on the Discovery Channel, and my wife said he’s going to be a pilot.”
Ken described the night show they will also be including this weekend.
“So the night show, we're shooting off about 2,500 individual shots of fireworks. So there's a whole lot. It takes us about six hours to load up for a six-minute fireworks show. So it is a lot, but it is about the neatest thing I think you can do. There's only a few of us in the nation who do it, and three that really do it to the level that we're doing it,” he said. “You'll see this weekend from (Nathan Hammond) and I, but yeah, next year, he'll (Austin) be doing it with me, so we're looking forward to actually doing this as a two shift.”
Both nights explode in fireworks shows, and this year, 500 drones will be added to the twilight display. Limited tickets are still available. For more information or tickets, go to Wings Over Batavia.
Photos by Jim Burns
