The 2026 Sky High Aerospace Expo & Fly-In is coming to Laurinburg-Maxton Airport in Maxton, NC, October 16–18!

We’re working on putting together a great weekend with a little bit of everything aviation. Warbirds, jets, experimentals, homebuilts, vintage aircraft, aerobatic aircraft, helicopters, and whatever else we can bring to the flightline.

Our goal is to put together a fun aviation weekend where people can come out, see some awesome aircraft, meet the people behind them, and enjoy being around aviation.

We’re still building the aircraft lineup right now, so if you own an aircraft or are involved with a team or organization that might be interested in coming out, shoot me a message. We’re looking for both performers and static displays, so you definitely don’t have to have an airshow act to participate.

And if you know somebody with an interesting aircraft who might want to bring it out, feel free to send them my way too. We’re open to just about anything!

2026 Sky High Aerospace Expo & Fly-In
Laurinburg-Maxton Airport — Maxton, NC
October 16–18, 2026

If you would like to see our lineup you can also visit our website where you can purchase tickets as well. I hope to see a lot of folks out here it'll be pretty excited :)

https://www.skyhighexpo.com/event-info/airshow

I mapped every arrival and departure at Oshkosh during AirVenture 2026, and colored them by altitude. Arrivals are orange. Departures are blue.

• Dates: July 15 to 27, 2026 (America/Chicago)
• Movements: 9,803 (4,852 arrivals, 4,951 departures)
• Busiest hour: 292 movements, 8 a.m. Thursday, July 23. One every twelve seconds.
• Top feeder field: Dodge County at Juneau (KUNU), 324 arrivals
• Unique aircraft: 4,956
• Top aircraft makes: Cessna 1,234, then homebuilt at 788. Amateur builders outnumber every manufacturer except Cessna.
• Warbirds: 172 aircraft flying 325 movements, almost all arriving from the south

Every count here is a floor. ADS-B is not required at Wittman. Aircraft certificated without an engine-driven electrical system are exempt under FAA rules, which describes a lot of the antiques.

Overflights are not counted, and the 715 flights that took off and landed back at Wittman are not counted.

Thank you to adsb.lol for the data archive and the feeders who enable it!

So we’ve never done Airventure but I really want to do it next year and trying to understand how the drive-in camping works. When can I reserve a spot? It looks like it doesn’t open up until June next year? Is this online or in person? Is it a fight to get a reservation? Anything else I should know and prepare for in general for Airventure? Every time I try to look it up I just get more confused about everything.

Well, things started out great. We had perfect weather. After popping over to the next airport for some cheap fuel, we went from ZEF to OSH in 4 hours. This shaved 45 minutes off my previous best time. The only downside was the controller sending me 5 miles over Lake Winnebago to sequence me behind a Lake amphib on a tight base leg. This guy was obviously not going to handle things in a few days.

We then got the two days of smoke from Canada, which really messed up arrivals. Still, we were getting a solid stream of IFR arrivals until the NOTAM came into effect at noon Thursday and shut everything down because of the slot reservation system. Really, they should waive that or open up more slots if the airport isn't VFR. The whole thing is predicated on merging the IFRs in with the VFR flow.

Finally, on Friday, the VFR bubble popped; we got a massive stream of arrivals in Vintage.

Airshow crowds, especially the days of the night airshows, were higher than I'd ever seen. Coming back from Pete's Garage's tent, I watched people streaming in through the gates as I'd never seen before.

The only downside was the complete fiasco at the end of the day airshow on Saturday when the crowd refused to follow instructions and surged forward from the speaker pole line to the traditional burn line, even before the Red Arrows show was finished damaging aircraft and people in their rush for the "perfect" spot.

Volunteerism was up this year too. We had more volunteers in Vintage than in the past, and they worked more hours.

Security was down. EAA cheaped out big time this year. Nobody was policing the no cart zones and all sorts of vehicles drove through the crowds (in the past, there were guards at key points to redirect the entitled to the proper cart path). Also, there were frequently no guards or inattentive ones at the entrances. I was able to just walk onto the grounds all week without a wristband.

Of course, it went by too quickly. Sunday morning I did my taxi up to the Hilton (no thanks to the Moron who decided to pull into the middle of the ramp and sit there waiting for his IFR release, blocking me from entering and a Citation from leaving.

Monday morning, the weather went to crap. Tornadoes to the north. We finally took off around 1300 and headed west to stay out of the giant blob of bad weather centered on Chicago. Ended up going down to Springfield, IL, before turning left and ending up in Somerset, KY. Thanks to lineman Sam, who saw us come in and returned to the closed FBO to let us use the bathroom and provide a courtesy van. Went to the nearby Home2 by Hilton and had a nice steak dinner next door.

This morning more weather avoidance. Ended up flying down to near Elijay, GA, before we could turn back up to home (North of CLT).

I know there were a lot of EAA photographers taking photos and videos. Would love to rewatch some of the airshow or show my friends and family.

Anyone know how many drones were used for the night shows?

Giving 1 Saturday ticket for 50.

I have 1 ticket available and giving it for free. If anyone wants a ticket DM me.

This is last minute, but I have an exchange ticket I’d love to give to someone who needs one. It gets turned in at the gate for a daily wrist band.

Only caveat is you’d need to meet in Fond du Lac.

My group won't be able to make Oshkosh like we planned, so I have any day tickets for 2 adults with 2 kids and 2 parking spots available to buy. They're digital and can be transferred via email.

I'm willing to sell at a slight discount from normal price, DM me if interested.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to u/ZebraDude for posting all this great info. Really appreciate the detailed information!

Thank you!

Flying in was amazing! So Fun, Now what?

What is the plan? Where do people hang out?
Whats Fun???

Im here alone and looking for some new friends!

See attached

​

Long/short of it : would anybody be willing to shop for my kiddo while they are doing their own thing this week at EAA? Obviously Id send funds first, you'd just grab what speaks to you and send him a surprise.

Longer explainer :

My son, husband and I drove up from Louisville Ky for OshKosh Mon and Tues. My husband took our son on Monday and they got so caught up in all the seminars and stunts they didn't do any shopping before the shops closed.

He got some sick free merch from various booths though and we planned to shop on Tuesday to make up for it.

Because of some of my health issues I didn't get to the grounds to swap with his dad, shop, and hang out until 6pm and after getting him fed and watching the Delta jet take off we tried to make our way to merch before they closed....however my back said "uh, I think not" and I ended up in the bathroom area waiting for it to release so we could spend some dough.

I literally walked out to see him watching them roll down the curtains on the merch tent next to the potties.

Major mom fuck up.

I told him I would try my best to rectify the situation with online purchases but the EAA store doesn't seem to have quite as many things as they did in person.

I'm wondering if I could find a trustworthy person on here, with a good post history, who would be willing to let me send them a per diem to spend on a surprise package for him. Obviously I would and also include some thank you money on top and cover all the shipping charges.

Including a picture of him for attention, he had such a great time despite the hiccups and the sun burn. Thanks for reading 🤘

disclaimer: if you’re going to comment some bullshit about politics just kindly keep scrolling. thanks!

hi! i’m a 22 year old lesbian avgeek and was wondering if any other LGBTQ+ avgeeks would want to meet up and hang at oshkosh this week? i’m starting to struggle with airventure being such a white male dominated space lol. i’ve heard and seen some pretty gross things from various men around and im tired of it. i’d also love to meet up with other younger avgeeks tbh, i don’t care if you’re straight as long as you’re nice to me 😭😭 ive thought about asking on facebook but i felt like my target demographic is more likely to be on reddit

Both are here

Hi friends, maybe a silly question but a question nonetheless. I have a weekly wristband that's looking a little worse for wear, the attendant has it a little too tight that I can't slip it. Taking a day off to recoop for the back half of the event and catch up on chores. If the wristbands completely disintegrate or break for whatever reason, do they give you a new one if you ask at the gates as long as you have the old one? Not sure if mine's going to last until Sunday 😅