AMA EXPO WEST 2019

[kittyfritters]

I will be at the AMA EXPO WEST at the Fairplex in Pomona, California on November 1st through 3rd. I will be in the Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron area, Booths 369-373, and will be doing my wet covering demonstration. I will also be doing some building and have some models to display and some kits available.

You will also be able to meet Dave Gee, president of the Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron, Don Butman, model builder extraordinaire and light plastic covering guru, and Bill Watson of man power airplane and blimp fame among others.

Hope to see you there!

Howard Littman
(kittyfritters)

[kittyfritters]

We've been moved! The Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron's booths have been moved close to the Make And Take area. (See Map) This makes sense since we are running the airplane make and take with Guillow's gliders for the kids.

KF

[kittyfritters]

Some of the members are setting up a web cam in the booth. If it works I will post where you can access the "Black Sheep Cam" to get live streamed video from the show.

KF

[kittyfritters]

Well, obviously, we didn't get the webcam to work inside the exhibit hall.

The AMA EXPO was very disappointing. Attendance was so low that the AMA decided not to hold it again.

Most of the pictures are of the Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron booth and were taken before the show opened.

At one end of the booth were tall stands one with a radio controlled witch and the other with one of Bill Watson's rubber powered blimp chasing an odd rubber powered model around on a motorized rod.

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At the other end of the booth was our pylon with a rotating Black Sheep Squadron sign on top. All this motion attracted a lot of attention.

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Dave Gee was waiting under the pylon to ambush kids with his "Name the plane" contest (There was a Dusty Crophopper in the card deck so even the little ones got something.), give out "cheesy prizes" and sign up new club members. (We got 8 new and 2 renewals, not bad for a show.)

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Jim Leuken was selling books. I was demonstrating "wet" covering. (Of course, I'm not in the picture, I took it.) Bill Watson was sitting next to me and would occasionally take his other rubber powered blimp and fly it in the room much to everyone's delight and astonishment. I also flew that F2A, on the stand on the table, in the Show center area where they were holding the Alpha contest. They were selling the Alphas for $10. I bought one just to get the winder!

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There was a display of a few of Don Butman's models. Don Smith is holding down the fort in the photo. That slick looking orange and white R/C ship on the table in front of Don attracted a lot of attention. Almost everyone who walked by asked where they could get the kit. Unfortunately, it's a one off that Bill Watson sketched on a napkin one evening and thought it looked so good he had to build it.

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I included a shot of the Static "beauty contest" at the entrance to the hall to give you a rough idea of how large the venue was. Another show scandal was that the AMA promised cash prizes for the static contest but did not hand them out.

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It's not readily apparent in the photo but the show was actually four aisles wide. Although there were some busy times for about half of the show the room didn't look much different than the before the show photos. Well, you get the idea.

[staubkorb]

Fixed it, Howard!

[kittyfritters]

Thank you!

[kittyfritters]

Maybe I made it sound more dismal than it actually was. When there were people at the show we had a lot of fun. The problem was that there crowds were not anywhere near what the were in previous years. We had vigorous discussion about what caused this and there were many reasons pointed out, but most agreed that the main reason was that the AMA failed, for the past four years, to promote the show outside the AMA membership. For example, there was no local news coverage of the event that any of us saw. It really should have been promoted as a "Hobby Show" even if the AMA paid for most of it. After all, the boat, car, truck and tank people were there also.

Anyway, Cloud Cho, a member of the Black Sheep, took some pictures that may give a better idea of what it was like when the show was actually open.

KF

There actually were many booths to attract your attention. (The kid in the yellow shirt belongs to Cloud.)

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Here's a shot of the "beauty contest" when there were people around.

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The Make and Take for airplanes was walk up. The little kids got Guillow's sliptogether gliders. The older kids built Delta Darts but there was no place to fly them.

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The Make and Take for rockets was scheduled and people had to sign up for a time. It was well attended when it ran.

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Whenever Bill Watson flew his rubber powered blimp people were astonished and delighted.

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The little kids did enjoy the gliders.

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Dave Gee had fun with the kids and his "Guess the Plane" game. The trouble was there weren't enough kids.

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This was the outside teaser booth. There were tanks, truck and cars in the aisles several times during the show. It really was a general hobby show with tanks, cars, trucks and boats as well as planes.

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The AMA was selling Alphas for $10. I bought one just to get the winder although they do fly amazingly well.

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[kittyfritters]

Here's a link to a clip of the Black Sheep booth at the EXPO, before the show opened, which I post anyway even though Dave caught me at about the most unflattering moment possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtShVQHjrVY

KF