D.O.G.S. Dayton Ohio Giant Scalers Fly-In Flyin Airshow

The D.O.G.S. History - Contributed by Joe Balmer

The event was started in 1996 by Frank Noll Jr. and Jim Martin at the AF Museum. It was considered more trouble than it was worth by the Museum at that time and they didn't want much to do with it. The first year, there were 40 to 50 pilots attending and maybe 2000 to 2500 visitors.

It grew steadily over the next few years and along about the 4th or 5th year reached a crowd of around 15,000 to 20,000. Year 7 saw around 30,000+ visitors and close to 200 pilots with 300 to 400 models on display and flying. We had now become one of the premiere crowd drawing attraction for the Museum and they started to get very interested in the event. Year 7, also, saw us able to put on the first full scale airshow, Matt Chapman, at the base since the mid-sixties. Of course this was before 9-11-01 and a show isn't possible under the present conditions anymore.

In the past we had a Half Time show including a great Pyro/WW II model show, but that is no longer happening as the group doing the pyro work isn't doing so anymore, due to 9-11 and the regulations now in place. This will be missed greatly by us and the visitors. We hope to have something to offset this loss.

We still plan to have, as part of the Half-Time show, all the warbirds flying together. We are going to continue a format, started last year, of open flying, half-time show, warbirds only, aerobatic only, and back to open flying each day of the event. As in the past, the AF Museum is opening up after hours for the pilots to tour and enjoy the new displays and then we have one of the IMAX movies, with donated prizes from the vendors to be raffled before the show on Saturday evening. One of our main sponsors, RC Hobby Center, hosts the annual Friday evening pizza party for the pilots and crew members.