No DWC aviation festival this September

Nashua – Daniel Webster College has decided to take a year off from holding its Aviation Heritage Festival.

"The original conception was that we'd have it every couple of years," said college president Robert Myers. The college, which is known nationally as a leader in aviation education, has held the festival annually in September at Nashua Municipal Airport's Boire Field for the past five years.

"It's a really expensive event to mount. Last year's festival cost about $140,000. It's a lot of money," Myers said.

The funding for the festival also comes directly out of the college's budget.

"That's part of the problem. We'd like to find someone with deep pockets to defray the cost and keep the money for our students," Myers said.

The festival itself was never intended to generate revenue for the college. "It's very successful at generating people but not money. At best you break even," Myers said.

According to Annette Kurman, DWC director of public relations, last year's two-day festival brought nearly 15,000 visitors.

Myers said that the year off will also give the volunteers who work on the festival a break.

"It requires a lot of time for the unpaid volunteers and requires a lot of advance work. The only thing worse than not having a festival is putting on a bad one."

The year off will also prevent fans of the festival to be saturated by it, Myers said. "We don't want people to get used to seeing it."

Past festivals have featured aircraft from all eras of aviation, such as the P-47 Thunderbolt and A-10 Warthog, for visitors to view up-close. Guest speakers have included World War II pilots and representatives from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and Christa McAuliffe Planetarium. Air demonstrations and aircraft fly-bys were also featured.

The college is looking to hold its next festival next year.

"We anxiously look forward to putting one on in 2007 and putting it back on the original cycle," Myers said.