MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Airshow may add a separate event for radio-controlled aircraft in 2024. That’s one possibility discussed by Port of Moses Lake commissioners during a presentation on the 2023 air show at the regular meeting Monday.

Terry Quick of Entco International, Seattle, among the event promoters, said organizers are looking for sponsors for an RC component of the larger air show. Radio-controlled aircraft have been part of the airshow, but their part would be expanded.

“If we manage to get enough sponsorship to do it the right way, we’ll be bringing in world-class pilots and planes,” Quick said. “There are a couple of world champions that we’re talking to.”

There are multiple competitions for RC aircraft, which are scale models of actual aircraft spanning the entire history of powered flight from biplanes to jets to helicopters. But there are few if any air shows, Quick said.

“There isn’t one in North America. The only one is over in Germany; it’s been around for about 10 years. They currently draw about 15,000 people a year,” he said.

The prospect of an air show is gaining attention in RC circles.

“There’s a lot of interest out there already,” Quick said.

The idea of an RC airshow would appeal to children and young people, Quick said, something that ties in with the goal of making the air show family-friendly. Young people have grown up with smartphones and video games, he said, and the RC planes will appeal to them.

“If you watch the kids coming in, they gravitate over (to the RC displays) because they’re kid-sized planes. They’ll watch all of (the aircraft) in the air, but when Dad wants to go inside the C-17, they’re not interested. It’s like a ballroom — they can’t relate,” he said.

The air show in its current format is growing at a fast pace, according to ticket sales; the ticket-purchasing software doesn’t have a way to estimate attendance, Quick said. Commissioner Darrin Jackson said he wanted to figure out a way to count actual attendees, even if that means counting people at the gate.

For 2023 the air show had 4,000 transactions online, Quick said, and about 65% of the tickets sold were bought by people whose zip code was for a location more than 50 miles away from Moses Lake. Of that 65%, about 37% of the tickets were bought by people more than 100 miles away.

That means the air show is meeting one of the goals originally set for it, Quick said.

“One of the directives from the port when they first started this thing is they wanted to attract tourists; they wanted to impact Grant County and Moses Lake in particular in a positive way,” he said.

He expects the air show to keep growing, and depending on the exhibitors attending, possibly grow significantly. Depending on the reception of the RC air show, that could be broken off into its own event, he said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at [email protected].