One of the major goals motivating aircraft builders, owners and restorers is the chance to receive a prestigious Lindy award, acknowledging their skill and dedication, at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. While the awards will continue this year as they have in the past, how EAA presents the awards has been changed.

In past years, all of the coveted EAA AirVenture aircraft awards (except for Warbirds) were presented together on Saturday night at the Theater in the Woods. This year, for the first time, each member interest group (Rotorcraft, Ultralights, Homebuilts, Seaplanes and Vintage) will present their annual aircraft honors at individual award ceremonies. The change allows recipients to receive their honors at events attended by their peers and is designed to help create a more enthusiastic, engaged atmosphere.

"The feedback we’ve received from the people involved in the EAA Aircraft Awards program indicates a desire to make the presentations more meaningful to the award winners," said EAA President Tom Poberezny. "That’s just not possible when you’re dealing with more than 150 individual awards presented together at one event. So we took the approach to hold individual events based on member interest groups, with the homebuilders honoring homebuilders, Vintage enthusiasts honoring the Vintage award winners, and so on."

The new schedule of awards presentations is as follows:

• Rotorcraft awards will be presented at the Theater in the Woods on Friday evening, July 27.

• The Ultralight awards ceremony will be Saturday evening, July 28, during the annual Ultralight party at the Nature Center.

• Homebuilt aircraft awards will be presented Saturday evening, July 28, at Forums Building 11 at 6 p.m.

• Seaplane aircraft awards will be presented at the EAA Seaplane Base during the annual Watermelon Social on Saturday evening, July 28.

• Vintage aircraft awards will be presented Saturday evening (7-8 p.m.), July 28, at the Theater in the Woods.

• The EAA Warbirds of America will continue to present its AirVenture awards on Saturday evening in the EAA AirVenture Museum’s Eagle Hangar.