S.D. Air Show Grounded by Financial Woes

Air/Space America, the financially troubled international air and trade show planned for early May at Brown Field, has been canceled because of financial and planning problems, show chairman and founder Bob Wilson said Wednesday.

Wilson, a former Republican congressman from San Diego, said he had “no choice” but to cancel the show because of barriers erected by the “city of San Diego bureaucracy.” Wilson alleged that the city recently stymied the organization’s last-ditch attempt to win financing, and that city officials on Monday needlessly halted show preparations at the city-owned airfield on Otay Mesa.

Those delays “added damaging delay to an already late schedule,” said Wilson.

Wednesday’s cancellation evidently ends Wilson’s long-running dream of establishing an international air show and trade exposition in San Diego that would rival established shows elsewhere in the world. Air/Space America’s board of directors will meet this afternoon to determine “the next steps to be taken,” a spokesman said.

During Air/Space America’s initial, problem-plagued air show and trade exposition in 1988, Wilson described the biennial event as America’s version of the Paris Air Show, the world’s oldest air and trade show. Air/Space America had hoped to win city approval to hold the shows on even-numbered years at Brown Field.

Air/Space America’s ambitious undertaking included public air shows on the weekends of May 5-6 and May 11-12, where aerial performers including the Air Force Thunderbirds would delight hundreds of thousands of spectators. Air/Space America also hoped to host a 10-day trade show where 350 corporate and government exhibitors from around the world would display aviation and electronic goods.

Earlier this month, the show’s organizers maintained that the show was on track.

But a Times article April 8 showed that, with just weeks to go before the May 5 opening day, Air/Space America had only recently received city permits needed to begin grading at the city-owned airfield.

By early April, at least three companies had stopped working on the show because Air/Space America had failed to make promised payments. And, some corporations that had exhibited at Air/Space America’s initial show in 1988, told The Times that they would bypass the San Diego show for other trade fairs.

The show’s failure could make it more difficult for other San Diego groups to sponsor future air and trade shows, according to Jack Flynn, a member of a group that unsuccessfully competed with Air/Space America for the right to stage the 1990 show. “It will be kind of tough, but not impossible, to convince the major exhibitors to come back to San Diego,” Flynn said Wednesday.

Air/Space America’s problems will have no effect on the free air shows that Miramar Naval Air Station plays host to on two weekends each summer. Those shows, which are open to the public, are not related to Air/Space America.

City officials on Wednesday contested Wilson’s claim that San Diego’s government was at fault.

“The city went the extra mile and joint-ventured with them, even though there were debts from the ’88 show,” Mayor Maureen O’Connor said. “We didn’t have to go that extra mile and we did.”

Wilson’s allegations “are a smoke screen,” said Terry Flynn, the city’s general services director. “Here we are with 14 working days left to finish the site for show . . . and they were not able to secure a financial sponsor.

“The City of San Diego bent over backwards to help Air/Space America pull this show off,” Flynn said. “They just didn’t have the financial backing, none of their contractors would come on the field without assurances that they’d be paid up front.”

The show cancellation was “really an unfortunate development,” Flynn said. “But it’s been an issue of mismanagement right through from the first show” in 1988, which left Air/Space America saddled with a $2.7-million debt, most of which is still outstanding.

The cancellation means that the city will lose $186,462.63 in hotel room tax funds that the City Council already has spent to promote the Air/Space America show. In addition, the city will not receive $100,000 in promised rent for Brown Field, just as it never received the $100,000 rent payment for the 1988 show, Flynn said.

The city is still owed $30,033.78 for services that it provided during the first show, according to court records.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said Councilman Bob Filner, whose district includes Brown Field, site of the air show. “I am the only one who voted against giving them the money, on the grounds that the organization was mismanaged. It was only through partisan political pressure that the council continued to support it.”

The cancellation, which came just two weeks before the show’s planned May 5 opening, could generate considerable legal problems for the show’s sponsors, who are now notifying 175 trade show exhibitors from around the world that the show won’t occur. Air/Space America previously announced that it had booked delegations from several foreign countries, including the Soviet Union and China.

Air/Space America also could encounter more lawsuits from disgruntled creditors.

Earlier this month, The Times reported that at least three companies hired by Air/Space America to help stage the event had stopped working on the show. One of them, an Arizona firm that was hired to direct aerial performances at the two-week show, had threatened to sue Air/Space America if it was not paid.

The 1988 show prompted a flurry of lawsuits by contractors who claimed that the nonprofit air show organization owed them nearly $3 million. Two more lawsuits were filed earlier this year.

The show cancellation may hurt San Diego’s chances of hosting future international air shows, some exhibitors said, because the aerospace community still has bad memories of the first, problem-plagued show staged in 1988. Air/Space America in recent months has faced stiffened competition from more experienced air and trade show organizers elsewhere in North America.

“We’re going to Dayton (Ohio) and Abbotsford (British Columbia) in coming years,” Hughes Aircraft spokesman Howard Ruggles said Wednesday. Hughes, which donated $100,000 to Air/Space America in 1988, last week opted out of the now-canceled show at Brown Field because “we just couldn’t be assured that the upcoming show would take place,” Ruggles said.

“This is a black eye for the (San Diego) community, maybe undeserved, but in the aviation community, it won’t look good,” said Chuck Hoover, whose Arizona firm had been hired by Air/Space America to direct aerial displays at the show.

Hoover said contracts began wondering about the show’s future more several months ago when Air/Space America stopped making payments called for in contracts. “They effectively stopped answering their phones two days ago, and I still haven’t officially heard anything” about the show’s cancellation, Hoover said Wednesday.

City officials earlier this month grew concerned that Air/Space America would be unable to complete its “grand scheme,” Flynn said. The organization had yet to begin a proposed $4 million in improvements, including grading, paving and the installation of water lines, telephone lines and utilities.

“The only thing they’ve done is use a grader to move some weeds,” Flynn said.

Wilson, in a prepared release issued Wednesday, complained that the city had stymied Air/Space America’s attempt earlier this week to arrange a last-minute cash infusion that would have allowed the show to go on as planned. Wilson and other Air/Space America executives declined to be interviewed.

Flynn said Wilson on Monday introduced a “mysterious backer” who purportedly would have “written a check to (finance) $3 million worth of improvements” if the city agreed to give the backer rights to hold air shows at Brown Field in 1992, 1994 and 1996.

Those conditions could not be met without City Council approval, Flynn said, because Air/Space America first had to erase its 1988 debt and show a small profit from the 1990 show. Air/Space America also would have had to complete an environmental impact report that described the show’s effect on the Otay Mesa area.

But, even if new funding had materialized, some exhibitors and contractors who had been associated with Air/Space America questioned whether there was time for the organization to ready Brown Field for the May 4 show. On Wednesday morning, the only real evidence of the upcoming show was a promotional sign chained to a fence on Brown Field’s south side. That contrasted with the 1988 show, when crews began preparing the field in March.

“Even the richest entity on Earth couldn’t finish it now because they’ve past passed the point where it’s possible to do,” Hoover said.

Times staff writer Leonard Bernstein contributed to this story.