Quinte International Airshow Trip Report

Unsettled Sunday after a washed out Saturday

Transportation

Scouting things out ahead of time, I picked a parking spot near “École Secondaire Publique Marc-Garneau”, it’s about a 3km walk which is doable, but time consuming, but a shuttle bus left from the area. It’s not particularly well signed, but follow the crowd towards and queue for a bus was the way. The organization was average at best, drivers were not keeping track of how many people they’d already let on their bus…Ultimately our driver was one that did and she did a wonderful job. (and coincidentally the same driver on our way back).

On the way back, it was utter chaos, no orderly queueing, people formed a clump around each coming bus, some drivers had no idea how many they’d let on, so hopped on a bus only to find no seats left. These are our military running this, which is especially disappointing.

Bleachers

The organizers sold a bleacher add-on at $15 per person. The organizers really messed this up in my opinion. There is a main bleacher area and another smaller one (which was initially not open due to mud we were told). Your ticket is checked again at secondary check point, where an wristband is distributed, it was quite slow to be processed and probably could have been done at the main gates.

Inside the bleacher area, there were definitely not enough seats for everyone and no enforcement of how much space everyone was taking up. The “B” bleachers down the taxiway were comfortably empty the whole day and very comfortable to spread out, but did not offer the same views as the main centre-stage ones. It’s a real shame since it’s the same price for either.

Food

Lots of trucks on hand, but lines were out of control (unavoidable given the size of the audience I suppose). You’d miss a 30-40 minutes of the show waiting in line. Very reasonably priced options on offer (I’m sure some not so reasonable, see Ribfest-esque pricing were also there, but I probably managed to avoid it), Lions Club offered $2 drinks and snacks, hotdogs were ~$4, Lost Aviator had reasonably priced coffee (hot + cold).

The flying

The lineup is posted on their website, the flying order was posted on their Facebook . Official programs were being sold for $10. Pictures to come on the Instagram feed of course, my short takes: the Italian Frecce Tricolori was fantastic, filler acts did the filling (see: Long-EZ, meh), C117 impressive but sort of boring, and the Lancaster was nice, Viper, CF18 = amazing, Snowbirds sadly overshadowed by the impressive Italian display

Interesting note on the programs, they were being given away at the end of the show for free (presumably the Saturday rain made sales less than predicted). Kudos for that rather than just sending them to the recycling bin (kinda sucks if you bought one at full price though)

Static Displays

Amazing number of planes on display on the apron, I think to truly enjoy it, plan to arrive at gates open. The airshow proper was scheduled at 11:35, gates closed at 5:30 with flying ending at approximately 3:30. I think it’s hard to take it all in with the time but the lineup is excellent

Overall

Fun! 8/10? Not sure if we’re doing rating scales?

SOTQ - Last month

June 23

Site	Queue Length (# of photos)	Last fully screened day	Number of days
Jetphotos	28,936 (incr)	June 3, 2024	20 days (incr.)
Airliners.net	6,233 (similar)	June 3, 2024	20 days (decr.)

June 30* (actually July 1 whoops)

Site	Queue Length (# of photos)	Last fully screened day	Number of days
Jetphotos	27,475(decr)	June 12, 2024	19 days (decr.)
Airliners.net	6,495 (similar)	June 8, 2024	23 days (incr.)

July 7

Site	Queue Length (# of photos)	Last fully screened day	Number of days
Jetphotos	24,455 (decr)	June 22, 2024	15 days (decr.)
Airliners.net	6,356 (similar)	June 14, 2024	23 days (unch.)

July 14

Site	Queue Length (# of photos)	Last fully screened day	Number of days
Jetphotos	24,877 (similar)	June 30, 2024	14 days (decr.)
Airliners.net	6,279 (similar)	June 22, 2024	22 days (decr.)