Annual Meeting Highlights EAA Successes
By Barbara A. Schmitz
The 2025 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh fly-in convention set a new attendance record at 704,000 visitors. But despite the smoke that caused delays and poor visibility for much of the weekend, it appears the 2026 event will be close to last year’s numbers.
“It’s nothing but remarkable,” EAA CEO Jack J. Pelton said at Wednesday’s annual meeting, after comparing gate admission, parking, and other numbers to the year before.
EAA is continuing to improve its grounds with the groundbreaking of the youth Discovery Park occurring earlier in the week. “KidVenture started humbly as a hands-on activity for kids 12 and under,” Jack said. “Now we are seeing 20,000 kids coming through there on a weekly basis.”
Jack said it was time to enhance KidVenture and incorporate all activities in one spot on the convention grounds and give a permanent home to KidVenture. The center’s ribbon cutting will be held at the 2027 convention.
In addition, on Wednesday the 2.5 millionth Young Eagle flew. “Tom [Poberezny] set a challenge to fly 1 million youth when EAA started the Young Eagles program, and a lot of people didn’t believe it could occur,” Jack said. “But we’re not going to take the foot off the pedal and get to 3 million next.”
EAA challenged Young Eagles pilots to fly 25 Young Eagles in one year to reach this year’s milestone, and Jack said 280 pilots accomplished that, noting the program is a cornerstone for all EAA’s programs to get youths involved in aviation.
Advocacy is also a priority for EAA this year with several challenges. One of those is ASTM standards for light-sport aircraft, with Van’s new RV-12 that was designed to the ASTM standards becoming a major breakthrough, Jack said. “Now that this is done, it will be a game changer.”
Other issues that EAA will focus on is getting lead out of aviation fuel, ensuring that ADS-B, which was designed for safety, is not used for generating revenue for airports, and integrating unmanned aircraft into the airspace. “There must be a level playing field for how that airspace is used,” Jack said.
EAA will also work to reduce the barriers for maintaining older aircraft, he said.
In the next year, Jack said EAA will also have more of an online presence to communicate to members year-round, keeping people informed on what the organization is doing.
Jack also shared:
- EAA is getting closer to getting its B-17 back in the air after collaborating with others to get a set of spars purchased at a significantly reduced cost.
- Webinar attendance is strong, with over 35,000 attendees in the last year.
- 89,000 visitors visited the EAA AirVenture Museum in the last fiscal year. EAA will be updating its kids area to ensure all items are again functioning. It has also initiated self-guided interactive tours.
- EAA has 889 chapters across the country.
- With the help of the Ray Foundation, EAA is helping more young people learn to fly. And when you get young people engaged with a chapter and mentors in that chapter, even more young people will succeed.
“All of our success is because of our volunteers,” Jack said. “Without them, none of this would happen. We have 6,000 volunteers at AirVenture alone and thousands more year-round. You can’t put a price tag on any of that, and I can’t thank them enough.”
Caption: EAA CEO Jack J. Pelton presents the Chairman’s Award to John Nowicki at Wednesday’s annual meeting. The award is given to an EAA member whose passion, skill, and vision have carried EAA programs forward. John has been volunteering for EAA for 46 years, including at his home chapter, Chapter 101, is a Young Eagles pilot, and leads the volunteer advisory committee, helping to streamline and enhance the EAA volunteering experience. “I don’t take this honor lightly,” John said. “This award is shared with my family, friends, and fellow EAA members. Without their support, I would not have been able to do this for the last 46 years.”
