Impressions - April 2023 - 35

been fascinated by these airplanes. As we
were doing more aviation shows, I got to
see more and more WWII planes and was
encouraged to join the Commemorative
Air Force through my legacy as an Air
Force veteran. Through that, everything
just snowballed. "
After getting hooked up with the ComRocky's
love of aviation is selfevident
in much of his work.
memorative Air Force, the Smiths secured
what was called the " rights " to do shirts
for a few of the group's shows. Rocky says
the events are like an old-fashioned barnstorming,
during which the organization
will fly four or five airplanes into a city in
order to give tours and rides. This is where
Rocky Smith Productions' T-shirts and
accessories dovetail on the event.
The events are held throughout the
country, and Rocky now travels to many
of them, selling a number of different
items out of what the Smiths call their
mobile gift shop. " We [the organization]
consider ourselves a kind of living museum
like a flying museum, " Rocky says.
" The Commemorative Air Force's motto
is to honor, educate and inspire. We create
T-shirts to echo that motto and handle the
concessions and gift shop for each show
we go to. They have chapters all over the
country, so we go in and set up, sell, break
down and move on to the next. "
The Smiths first " gift shop " consisted
of a trailer that housed a cache of blank
inventory, including T-shirts, sweatshirts,
hats and the like. It also carried an embroidery
machine and heat press to apply
aviation-themed transfers the couple screen
printed at their facility. The Smiths would
then create custom orders and have designs
with original artwork on site. Soon,
demand became too great. Rocky was also
too busy, as he serves as the " ramp boss "
for the events, making sure the airplanes
are moving where they need to be and
that the crowd and staff are safe.
" I soon found out I didn't have time for
custom orders with my other obligations, "
Rocky says. " So, we now preprint everything
and keep the merchandise in the
trailer. Because Alma works for an airline,
she flies in every Friday to help me with
sales for the weekend wherever I am in the
country. Every Friday, she shows up with
two big suitcases full of restock. "
" We originally invested heavily in transfers, "
Alma says. " We would bring in the
blanks and the transfers that we had printed
back at the shop and apply the designs on
site with a heat press. But with the Commemorative
Air Force, that became too
labor intensive because we were so busy.
So now we screen print everything in our
shop and the inventory is replenished every
weekend when I fly to the next show. "
A Balancing Act
As the case with most other decorators,
before the Commemorative Air Shows'
business took off, Rocky Smith Productions
also created apparel and accessories for
local school, churches, teams, community
groups, businesses and more. Once starting
with initial air shows, the company dropped
the other sales to focus solely on working
the aviation angle. However, Rocky notes
there proved to be a downside to this kind
of specialization as well.
" We learned a lesson there about putting
all your eggs in one basket when we
were working with one organization, in
particular, " he says. " A few years ago, two
planes crashed and unfortunately some
people lost their lives. The FAA shut that
particular organization down, and we felt
it was time to go back to screen printing
for outside organizations as well again, so
we remained diversified. Then we joined
the Commemorative Air Force shows and
business took off again. So, while our commitment
to the Commemorative Air Force
is huge, our business has expanded to be
more inclusive of a variety of jobs. "
To this end, the company now has an
entirely separate website (b29b24px.org)
for the WWII plane and aviation designs
offering apparel, hats, mugs, plaques, Christmas
ornaments, aviation photography and
more. The designs celebrate two of the most
iconic airplanes in the world, in particular:
the B-29 " Fifi " and the B-24A " Diamond
Lil, " with the goal of raising funds for the
maintenance of these two icons through
the sale of logoed merchandise.
Learning Curves
At press time, the company which still consisted
of just Rocky, Alma and one other
person, was looking to hire some more
staff to handle its expanding orders. The
team currently operates both a Workhorse
manual and an automatic screen-printing
press, a Toyota embroidery machine, and
an Epson F 2100 DTG machine acquired
this past fall. The couple spent a good deal
of time testing the DTG machine before
fully bringing it to the production cycle
having had trouble with digital printing
in the past. But it has quickly become an
integral part of their business (see sidebar:
Making a Mark).
As far as marketing and social media,
the Smiths admit they are novices and still
looking to ramp up their efforts. " During
COVID, we didn't travel at all and did some
marketing through Facebook to ramp up
our sales, " Rocky says. " It didn't work very
well, and I need to figure out how to do it
better. So, after we hire people to handle
the production so my wife and I aren't
working seven days a week, I'm wanting
April 2023
P.35
http://www.b29b24px.org
Impressions - April 2023

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