Today when I got to Sun-n-Fun I headed straight for Paradise City, the ultralight and light plane area. They were doing manufacturer's demos and would have one of the light planes takeoff circle and land while the announcer told the crowd about the aircraft. From here we started to head toward the rotorcraft area and realized it was a very long way away at the end of the airport property. We cut back toward the flightline and walked past the seaplane area to the warbird area. I am stll amazed by how many aircraft are here. Brian assures me that Oshkosh is even larger. We continued on toward the main runway and entered into the homebuild area. Here we got a chance to get an up close look at many different kit and plans built planes. I'm even starting to recognize several of them. There were a bunch of RV's, Mustangs, Sonex, and many others all lined up in groups. It seemed like just a short time and it was lunchtime aleady. We grabbed some lunch and much needed sit down time then headed back over to the vendor hangers then back out to the homebuilt area. Just before 2:00 pm we were asked to move back behind the main fence because the airshow was about to start. They started with the warbirds as the announcer gave a great history presentation of the time between WWI and the events leading up to WWII. I really enjoyed seeing Ol' 927 a B-24A making the passes around the field. It is hard to get a photo of a plane as it's moving right overead, but I finally got a good snapshot. After the warbirds the aerobatic planes took the sky and man can thoses pilots really wring it out! We went back into one of the food areas to get something to drink. There were some guys at the table we sat down out and we struck up a conversation. I told them that I had just started my flying lessons and they gave me all kinds of advice and encouragement. I even got some hints about making perfect landing, pretend the runway is hot acid and you don't want the tires to touch it. After our break my friends were heading out and I decided to find the tram that went out to Choppertown. Since the airshow was still going on they were not flying, but I got to walk around and see the Gyroplanes and helicopters. I did want to see some of the Gyroplanes taking off and landing, maybe tomorrow if I have time.
My schedule for tomorrow is to head out to Plant City Municipal airport for a demo flight in an RV-7A. This plane is right at the top of my short list after this week. If I have time after the flight I'll head back to Sun-n-Fun, but I've got to get to Tampa for my flight home tomorrow around 4:30 or so.
Here is a link to an article about yesterday's runway overrun. There is also a lot more news and photo albums from Sun-n-Fun on the Lakeland Ledgers main site
Here is a link to an article about yesterday's runway overrun. There is also a lot more news and photo albums from Sun-n-Fun on the Lakeland Ledgers main site
Here is a link to an interesting YouTube video that was shot onboard the plane that had the engine out emergency.
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