JANESVILLE — As air shows go, Pistons & Props is growing up.
After two years as a mostly ground-based aircraft and car show, the nonprofit-run is expanding this August to become a three-day event. Organizers say they hope they can lure crowds eight or ten times the size the event at the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport saw in 2024 and 2025.
Lizzie Starling is vice president of Propel Forward, the nonprofit that launched Pistons & Props. She says the event is expanding it to become a full-fledged air show with skydiving expos, airplane rides and aircraft displays, special exhibits, children’s activities, expanded food and beverages, and something Pistons & Props has been building toward for a few years — a full slate of war plane and classic airplane flyovers.
It’s the first full-on air show at Janesville’s airport in over a dozen years.
Starling’s colleague on Pistons & Props’ board of directors, Courtney Perakis, boiled down the event’s expansion this way: “Our air show is actually an air show now.”
So Perakis told the city of Janesville’s Alcohol License Advisory Board this week during a hearing over a temporary liquor license for Pistons & Props, which runs Aug. 28 -30 at the airport at 1716 West Airport Road.
Pistons and props lured 2,500 people in 2024, and 7,000 to 10,000 people last year — both as two-day events that included a war veterans night on Friday. Organizers say they’ll continue veterans night Aug. 28.
Starling says organizers are returning with a bigger dining and drinking area, VIP tents and a full extra day of events, air show flyovers alongside a local car show and a bevy of supercars that’ll ply the airport tarmac at eye-popping speeds.
But it’s the now full-grown airshow that’s the biggest-ticket addition to Pistons & Props. Attendants can watch flyovers by SNJ Texan Warbirds, a plane the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps used to train fighter pilots during World War II. Among other fliers: a formation of Soviet-era, Russian MiG-17F fighter planes.
And for local fans, Harvard, Ill. native Susan Dacy, a retired airline pilot, returns with her Super Stearman biplane, “Big Red.” Like other fliers, Dacy’s plane is big, loud and acrobatic — and Dacy knows how to fly it with a range of barnstorming, aerobatic flare — including barrel rolls, loops and hammerhead dives.
Dacy was a favorite at a former airshow at the airport that ran several years in the 2000s and 2010s.
“This is the big change with Pistons & Props this year,” Starling said. “We’re going from static to aerobatic.”
This year, Blain’s Farm & Fleet and Hendricks Holdings have bolstered Piston & Props with larger sponsorships and bigger involvement — including Hendricks’ Geronimo Hospitality providing food and beverages all weekend.
Starling said Hendricks’ company Corporate Contractors, Inc. is helping sponsor a youth learning area at the air show for the second year in a row, giving youths a chance to be blown away by the science of powered flight.
Adults and kids alike can be blown away by exhibits on the ground, too, such as Slayer, a 1953 Corvette that’s been refitted with a 12,000 horsepower jet engine. It’s a car capable of tearing down airport tarmac at a top speed of 350 miles per hour.
Starling said organizers hope the expansion of Pistons & Props can draw 30,000 or even 50,000 people this year. But no matter the number, she said Pistons & Props hopes to draw crowds of all kinds of people and treat them to a big air show that packs small-town charm.
“Aviation is such an important thing, an important part of our world. To be able to have this kind of event in our small town really does put us on the map,” Starling said. “Whether our airplane enthusiasts are kids that are 3 years old to kids in their 90s, we know there are different air shows around the midwest. But we want this show to have a true hometown feel.”
