IAC Announces its Theme for EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025: Celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the Pitts Special!
By Taylor Mershon, IAC 442603
It may be early in the year, but it’s never too early to start looking forward to the next EAA AirVenture party at Oshkosh, Wisconsin! The IAC is already getting some things rolling behind the scenes in preparation for the biggest airplane event of the year, and we are so excited to announce our theme for 2025.
This year, the IAC is proud to join in on the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Pitts Special! This family of airplanes is dear to many of us, and deserves a very special week of honor at the IAC area of the AirVenture festivities. If you’re a Pitts owner, pilot, or enthusiast, please bring your airplanes and your interests to EAA AirVenture 2025 and celebrate with the IAC!
We have several exciting features planned for the week beginning with a robust lineup of forum speakers, including some of the most famous and influential aerobatic Pitts pilots in the world. We are also expecting to have a couple of meet and greets with some of the airshow performers at AirVenture, which will be an incredible time to ask questions, get signatures or photos, and listen to short talks about aerobatic aircraft, being an airshow pilot, and the aerobatic sequences that make up an airshow act.
Separate from our forum speakers, we will be featuring a daily selection of Airplane Talks. These speakers will cover a wider band of experiences and have a broader range overall of topics. Most of these are focused on the Pitts Special, but there are a few with some remarkable stories outside of that. The Pitts speakers will cover everything from an insanely modified Pitts aircraft and the adventures flying it to a three-generational homebuilt Pitts that was made to raise money for a noteworthy cause.
In the IAC pavilion we plan to have a miniature aerobatic box on the ground that is just the right size for ramp-dancing an aerobatic routine. This will be open for anyone to play in, and there’s been discussion that one unlucky competition pilot is going to have to step up to the stage and ramp-dance an unknown sequence wearing a turkey costume…. In front of a crowd.
For those flying their Pitts to AirVenture, we will be providing choice aircraft parking. We are expecting a diverse lineup of unique and famous Pitts Specials from all around the country to be featured around the IAC Pavilion, so there will be plenty of weird and wild airplanes to look at!
We have lots of other exciting things in the works and are continuing to diligently plan the items discussed above. This year, IAC’s EAA AirVenture celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Pitts Special is going to be a party like no other, and we can’t wait to see you there!
