WAC 2026 in New York

WAC 2026 in New York

Exciting news for those of you interested in world competition: the 33rd FAI World Aerobatic Championships will be held from August 18 to September 1st at the Genesee County Airport in Batavia, NY!

Our Nationals Contest Director, Shad Coulson, will be taking his talents to the world stage with this event that will bring in pilots and national teams from all over the world. Please reach out to Shad if you are interested in volunteering: shadcoulson@gmail.com.

Check in with Shad for details and watch iac.org as well as civa-news.com for the latest info.

My thanks to everyone involved in this bid and to our CIVA Delegate, Mike Gallaway, for making the pitch at the recent CIVA Plenary.

Fall Board Meeting Recap

We had a very productive and professional board meeting in Oshkosh on October 17. The event was a bit earlier than some previous years, which, thankfully, meant it was a bit warmer!

We met for a single day of discussion and debate on various topics, including the budget, Airventure, the National Championships, sequences, and the rule change proposals. The results of our meeting can be found at iac.org by selecting “Govern” from the main menu, then choosing “Meeting Minutes and Documents”. Note that you must be logged in to see this menu item.

Budget

Regarding the budget, I am encouraging the board to adopt a policy of regular increases to our dues and other fees to keep pace with inflation.

Dues in Constant Dollars

Our dues in constant dollars have decreased over time.

Prior to 2001, the board was increasing dues by roughly $1 per year, in five-year periods, which shows up as a jagged sawtooth shape. At that time, IAC leadership was watching over the revenue picture.

But then from 2001 to 2022, incredibly, there were no inflation-based adjustments at all. This can be seen as a long ramp gently downwards that takes up about a third of the graph.

In 2022, the IAC Board approved an increase from $45/year to $60/year. This can be seen as a sharp ramp up near the right edge of the graph.

While each increase is painful to our membership, failing to increase the dues to keep pace with inflation slowly erodes our ability to provide services to our membership. Without that increase in 2022 we would have had to make some very tough decisions this year.

Our Membership Levels Over Time

Our membership levels peaked in about 2000 at 6,000 members then dropped off a cliff to about 4,000 members, where we’ve stayed.

Perhaps post-peak, the board felt that it was too risky to increase dues with the membership numbers on the decline. But that decline ended quickly and surely had nothing to do with pricing. In fact, surely every sport follows the same pattern of rapid expansion followed by a contraction to a stable norm.

It seems likely that we will stay at 4,000 members indefinitely unless there is some kind of societal shift that is out of our control.

Membership Revenue in Constant Dollars

Combining the previous two charts provides us with a picture of the IAC’s membership revenue in constant dollars. Membership revenue makes up over 50% of the IAC’s total revenue.

Unfortunately, another major source of revenue for the IAC was ad sales for Sport Aerobatics. Those are dramatically down as well, and unlikely to recover.

The good news is that the IAC can be very successful with 4,000 members. We’ve been operating with that level of membership for a couple of decades now. In fact, we could scale down to fewer members if we had to.

Therefore, my advice to the board is to adopt another dues increase. More importantly, I will be asking the board to adopt a policy to regularly increase dues as we did in the early years of the IAC’s existence.

Hopefully these charts and my quick summary of the situation will help everyone understand where I’m coming from. Reach out if you need more info.

See You Next Month!

Ok that’s it from me this month. Please reach out with any reaction you have to this or anything else going on with the IAC! president@iac.org.