On behalf of the Windsor International Air Show and the volunteers, I would like to thank the spectators for coming out and supporting our show. It was a long year and a half of preparation and work, however it turned out to be an absolute stunning success.
We have received congratulations from all over North America.
I have been flooded with emails so much it has taken a week to answer them all. If you watched the show from outside the airport, we are elated that the spectators paid attention to the aircraft. We had reports of people all around the airport and some watching from nearby shopping centres that were on the flight line. We got your attention.
The Snowbirds are an absolute marvel to watch as they zip across the sky. They never get boring nor do the spectators get tired of watching them.
We hit our goals by providing the veterans with a weekend of enjoyment and hospitality for which they are entitled to, not just recognition, but camaraderie, respect and acknowledgement for their time efforts and patriotism. Our Veterans enjoyed the show immensely and we would do it again in a heartbeat just to see the fun and smiles emerge if at least for one weekend. I believe the spectators who met these brave men and women, enriched the lives of not only the vets, but learned a little history while enjoying the show. I say these are our Vets because we should take the ownership and the responsibility to never forget and pass the history down to the youth with all respect and dignity befitting fallen soldiers memories.
The service men and women in the current forces were also treated to a VIP weekend in Windsor and as they were leaving, many asked if they could be invited back as our volunteers catered to them and showed the hospitality deserving of their job. Meeting these pilots became a thrill of a lifetime for many spectators. Seeing the inside of these behemoth machines gave many an indescribable awe as they looked, touched and took pictures of some fantastic machinery.
We gave the Veterans the thanks, a few meals and the opportunity to watch some impressive machinery in action from the old to the newer technology. We shouldn't forget, that just because an aircraft can streak across the sky, it still has to have someone doing the job that gives us all our rights and freedoms.
Without the Veterans of the past, present and future, our society could never say we have freedoms. Freedom comes at a cost and the service men and women are there to make sure we all have the choices, rights and freedoms, we enjoy today.
We thanked the Vets, but it can never be enough. It was a show celebrating 100 years of Powered Flight in Canada and we think we hit a home run. I can just imagine the next 100.
We hope to see you next year, bigger and better.
