Florida Vacay - April 2019 - Sun 'N Fun - Lakeland, FL
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Yesterday, the weather wasn't that great (Tuesday) but it was great today (Wednesday) so Bruce and I hopped in the RV and headed west towards Lakeland and Sun 'N Fun.
We discovered Florida is very flat and mostly deserted between Vero Beach and Lakeland.
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Overhead Winter Haven Airport, just east of Lakeland. I landed here back in 2006 in the Corben Baby Ace on my Miami to Baltimore cross-country.
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| A lot of other peoples had the same idea we did, flying in this morning with the good weather. I actually had to hold for one circle around Lake Hancock -- the first time I've ever had to hold in all my Sun 'N Fun and AirVenture fly-ins. But then we were able to get in the queue at the Lake Parker power plant. Soon we are safe on deck at the new Homebuilt parking area to the east of the main area. |
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We walked by this immaculately polished Aircoupe on our way to the show.
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| A neat looking composite, biplane amphibian. One of these would be perfect for Florida with all its lakes. |
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| My favorite Sun 'N Fun airplane -- the flying rowboat -- is back in its rightful place at the Sun 'N Fun entrance. |
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| Of course, the first thing we hit were the four vendor buildings. |
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Of course, with the deadline for ADS-B Out at the end of the year, there was a lot of interest in ADS-B Out solutions. Here the uAvionics guy is demonstrating how quick and easy it is to install the SkyBeacon ADS-B Out Transmitter. As you can see, lots of people are watching.
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| Close up. It is merely a matter of swapping out your existing strobe/nav light with the Skybeacon. 15 minutes. Having installed the Garmin GDL-82 ADS-B Out system on my RV-7, I can tell you it took me a heckuva lot longer than 15 minutes! But because of my wingtip Whelon strobe/nav solution -- which I paid a lot of money for -- I didn't want to go with the uAvionics Skybeacon. |
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War Eagle!
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| Vans Aircraft Company's booth is there on the left. They only had two planes: an RV-12 and RV-14. The Sonex booth is off to the right. |
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| Zenith was across the street from Vans and had quite a few planes on display. |
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| The SubSonex jet got a lot of attention! |
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Another composite, light sport amphibian.
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| Speaking of amphibians, here is a Vollmer amphibian project for sale. Bruce and I went for test rides in a used one a long time ago. Although the demo flight was quite memorable, we did not end up buying the plane: underpowered and slow. |
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I can remember sitting down in the passengers seat and seeing the water at my eye level. It was not a reassuring sight. After a very long takeoff run, we finally staggered into the air. We were cruising over the South River at 500 feet at 65mph. I asked the pilot owner when he was going to get up to cruising speed. He said "this is it."
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| Good to see the Kolb Aircraft Company still hanging in there. |
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| We went over to Paradise Cit -- the Ultralight area -- and watched the vendor demos for awhile. Here a nice composite motorglider Light Sport comes in to land. |
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| A closer look. |
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A trike on floats. Nice.
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| Two bug smashers as my Dad would call them. The U.S. Navy had them and he flew them. |
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| A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) P-3. It is the cleanest P-3 with the fanciest paint job I've ever seen. |
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The great P-51 Mustang.
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| The special operations version of the great CH-47 Chinook: the MH-47G. The CH-47 was introduced into service in 1962. Over 1,200 variants have been built. |
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| I would not want to be on the ground with one of these looking for me. |
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| An old Soviet-era MiG-21. |
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Talk about old: The DC-3/C-47.
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| The Navy's T-45 Goshawk trainer, capable of landing on aircraft carriers. The Navy has 221 of them. |
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The P-51 Mustang my RV-7 paint scheme was modelled after: Quicksilver. Always good to see this handsome bird.
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| The ever awesome F4U Corsair. |
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| The massive AD-1 Skyraider. |
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| Bruce and I checked out the Fly Market where you can buy and sell your aviation treasures. Bruce got a good deal on a wood prop for his RV-3. |
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An Airdrome Aeroplanes Sopwith Camel.
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| I think this is the Warbird parking area. Lots of T-34s. |
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And also the Red Star birds: Yak-52s and CJs.
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| The homebuilt parking area. RVs were scattered all over the place at Sun N Fun. |
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| The Goshawk and Skyraider do a heritage flight. |
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| More RVs. Not sure what area this is. |
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The Coconut Flyers are always ready to party!
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| The Phillips 66 Aerostars flying around in their Extra 300Ls. |
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Bruce and I splurged and sat in the "Preferred Seating" area to watch the airshow. (We had to pay for the priviledge. Don't they know who we are?!) Here, I'm looking back to actually see who is talking on the loudspeaker.
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| Looks like we're in the front row! Plus we got free cold water. |
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| Mike Goulian says "Hey! Bill and Bruce! How you guys doing? Great to see you! Call me. I need to get some tips from you guys." |
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| An F-16 beats up the sky. |
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The F-16 flying on the wing of a Skyraider in a heritage flight. The F-16 pilot was incredibly good at keeping station on the Skyraider.
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| Greg Koontz going verticle in his Decathelon. |
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Now flying knife-edge down the line.
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| A privately-owned Lockheed T-33 showing off. |
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| The T-33 showing off low and slow. The T-33 was a jet trainer that came online in the late 40s. |
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| A 5-ship of T-28s making a pass in Delta formation. |
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Mike Wiskus flying an insane knife edge in the Pitts S-1-11B 20 feet high down the runway.
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| Those AeroShell boys do put out some smoke. |
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I always enjoy watching the AeroShell Team in their big T-6s.
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In all my AirVenture and Sun 'N Fun trips, this is the first time I've flown in and out for the day. After the airshow, Bruce and I hiked back to the RV and got it ready for flight. Then we joined the conga take for take-off line which literally stretched the entire length of the airport, from east to west.
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| It took around 30 minutes before we finally were able to takeoff. Fortunately, although it was warm, it wasn't hot, so the engine oil temps didn't get too high. I think 210 was the peak. |
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Finally, we took off. We must have been one of the last planes to leave, because the taxiway is now clear, as you can see.
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| Looking down at the show. The old homebuilt parking area is looking pretty empty. |
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The new homebuilt parking area at lower left, and homebuilt camping -- below the white tent -- at right.
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A good look at Paradise City and the ultralight/LSA grass runway.
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| We had expected clear skies on the flight home but what is this? Looks like fog ahead and to the south. |
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| It wasn't fog; it was smoke. It was a deliberate fire burn by the rangers at the Everglades National Park. |
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| Where there's smoke, there's fire. |
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Once we got past the fires, it was nice and pleasant. A great aviation day.
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