Stuart Air Show 2026

The Stuart Air Show takes place every autumn at Witham Field, the Martin County airfield in Stuart, Florida, and fills three days of November. It was not conceived as a commercial spectacle and it does not depend on an outside promoter: it is built and sustained by a local non-profit organisation that shares its name and is registered in the United States as a 501(c)(3) entity, the tax status reserved for charitable bodies. That status explains much of its character — gate revenue does not become a company profit but is shared out among social organisations in Martin and St. Lucie counties.

The site has more than a century of aeronautical use behind it, and the first airport proper was built there in 1928. It was originally called MacArthur Field and later took the name it bears today in honour of Paul Witham, a Stuart man killed in action in 1942. During the Second World War the field served as a military training airfield, a past the show claims explicitly whenever it programmes historic aircraft and re-enactments. Witham Field is today a general-aviation airport surrounded by the town, with the postal address 1895 SE Flying Fortress Lane, and the air show is the event that brings the largest crowds to its runways all year.

The organisation sums up its purpose in a motto: "Celebrating Aviation — Honoring Its Past & Inspiring Its Future". Its own institutional presentation states that it has spent more than thirty-seven years honouring the history of American aviation and its veterans, and that the show draws tens of thousands of attendees each time it is held.

The work does not stop at the flying weekend. The organisation works with Chapter 692 of the Experimental Aircraft Association, with Southeast Florida Honor Flight — the body that takes veterans to visit the memorials in Washington — and with the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps, and it runs educational programmes with schools and children's service agencies that bring science and technology to hundreds of school-age children every year. Among the bodies that receive funds from the show are United Way of Martin County, the Stuart Police Department's Explorer Post #878 and the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club, alongside other local charities.

The weekend is split between a Friday evening opening and two full display days on Saturday and Sunday. The 2022 edition illustrates the pattern well: Friday 11 November was given over to a "Twilight & Firework Show", with flying at dusk, fireworks, a concert by The Rotorheads and an evening party on the site; Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th carried the daytime programme. That night show is one of the event's distinguishing marks and sets it apart from nearby festivals that stick to daylight.

The gravest accident documented in the show's history happened on Friday 1 November 2019, at around a quarter past one in the afternoon. Dr Joseph Masessa, owner and pilot of a Grumman OV-1 Mohawk — a twin-turboprop observation and attack aircraft of the Vietnam War era — dived almost vertically into the infield during a practice flight at Witham Field. He was the sole occupant; emergency crews reached the wreck within seconds but could do nothing for him. His act was singular on the American air-show circuit: it combined simulated low-level attack passes with light aerobatics, and there was no other like it.

The organisers cancelled the Friday programme and issued a statement asking the public for patience while they came to terms with the loss of someone "very close to our air show family". Sunday's programme was also called off, that time because of the weather: rain grounded the aircraft and flooded the car parks. That edition was reduced to a fraction of what had been planned.

The 2022 gathering, billed as the show's 35th, was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the United States Air Force and came close to being derailed by the weather. Hurricane Nicole forced everything already installed on the site to be taken down and delayed the arrival of the participating aircraft. A member of the show's board put it plainly: everything they had set up had to come down. More than six hundred volunteers put the tents back up and found places to land the aeroplanes, and the show went ahead.

In November 2025 the edition billed as the 36th annual show was hit by the shutdown of the United States federal government. The F-35A Lightning II and F/A-18 Super Hornet demonstrations were cancelled because, as the Department of Defense confirmed, community outreach activities are not funded during a shutdown. Thousands of enthusiasts turned out all the same and the programme went ahead with aerobatics and vintage aircraft.

The 2026 gathering is set for 13, 14 and 15 November at Witham Field, with ticket sales again handled through the show's official website.

The year of the first edition is not given here because the sources consulted do not agree. The 2022 gathering was announced as the 35th and the 2025 one as the 36th annual show, two figures that cannot both hold if the event were strictly annual, while the institutional presentation speaks of "more than thirty-seven years" of activity without naming a founding date. None of the sources located states the starting year explicitly, so the field is left empty until one does.