Sun-n-Fun 2009 The End

Well I'm back home and I wanted to make my last Sun-n-Fun blog entry. After my demo flight I went back to Sun-n-Fun and there was a plane doing some sky writing. There was a great big smiley face in the sky. I then visited the Ultralight area again. I wanted to take a better look at an amphibious ultralight that looked nice. From there I met back up with Brian and his dad, Howard. We stopped over by the Vans tent and I picked up an information packet. I was going to buy the preview plans for the RV7, but I would not have been able to fit them in my luggage, I'll have to order them on the web. We finished up with a walk through the vendor areas outside the hangers. I had not been all through that area yet. Another place I missed all together was the Splash-in area were all the seaplanes flew in.

All in all my time at Sun-n-Fun was very enjoyable. I talked to many people and when they found out I was just starting my flight training, they were very excited and supportive, I heard a great many aviation stories from some of the "Old Timers" including Howard who is now 90 years old.

Most of my pictures are up on the Picasa website, you can access these picture just by clicking the slideshow in the blog or by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/daleccravenoh/SunNFun2009#

Next blog will be my pre-solo checkout flight on Tuesday.

Sun-n-Fun 2009 Friday

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

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090423/NEWS/904235091

Here is a link to an interesting YouTube video that was shot onboard the plane that had the engine out emergency.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U1lhDMZZD8

Sun-n-Fun 2009 Thursday

I uploaded some more pictures. The first few are from the runway overrun accident in the morning. I did not hear anything about this accident today, but I did hear that there was an engine out emergency at the beginning of the week and the pilot landed the plane on the highway nearby. I guess anytime you have this many planes in one spot something is bound to go wrong. I went to a forum on building a RV. The speaker has built 4 or 5 RV's from the RV3 up to the E-LSA RV12 he is working on now. The format of the forum was based on how the construction and kit quality has increased over the years. The RV12 kit even has predrilled holes in the skins AND the ribs. I met up with Brian, his dad, and his dad's friend for lunch. Brian's dad is who we are building the Zenith Aircraft Corp CH701 for. The first place we went after lunch was to the Zenith area to take a good look at the 701 and it's construction. I took a lot of pictures to help us with some of the assembly later down the road. We then walked through many of the vendors areas in the hangars and out near the flight line. We ended up going through the production airplane areas and took a good look at what I call my "Lottery Planes" For only $4995.00 a month you to can have a new Cessna 400 Corvalis Turbo. Not sure how many months the terms are for. I ended up at the Diamond display and ended up talking to the sales rep that covers the Ohio area.

At around 6:00 pm I had had enough and I headed back to the parking area. I couldn't be in Florida this close to the Gulf without getting my feet wet, so I headed to Clearwater Beach to see the sunset while standing in the Gulf of Mexico. What a beautiful ending to the day.

Tomorrow I'll be at the show again all day, but Saturday I have a demonstration ride booked in an RV7A in Plant City. I'm going to try to head back to Sun-n-Fun after my flight but it will depend on timing because I'm flying back home out of Tampa around 4:30 pm.

Sun-n-Fun 2009 Day 1 (for me)

I got to Lakeland Linder regional late today and didn't think I'd get to see much. Boy was I wrong. I caught the end of the airshow and then was amazed at the mass exodus of planes! They had them going one right after next for at least an hour.
I was able to get to much of the homebuilt area and some of the vendors, but a lot of people has already closed up their displays. I walked around through much of the vintage aircraft area and the flight line area. I did hang around for some steel drum music at the Sunset Grill and waited for the 8:00 pm program to start in the AOPA pavillion. This program was about two former enemies from the Vietnam War. On April 16, 1972 Dan Cherry and Hguyen Hong My met in the skies over Hanoi and after an intense 5 minute dogfight Cherry in his F4D Phantom managed to shoot down My in his MiG 21. Just a few months earlier My got his first kill of an American fighter. Many years passed and Cherry found himself wondering about the Vietnamese pilot. After many fruitless searches, Cherry contacted a TV show in Vietnam that brought long lost people back together and they found the pilot and reunited the two on live television. Cherry was able to spend some time with his new friend in Vietnam and when he left My asked him to try to find out what happened to the US pilot of the plane he had shot down in January of 1972. This week was My's first time to the US and together they will be telling there story throughout the week at Sun-n-Fun. It was announced at the program tonight that Cherry has located the pilots of the US fighter and they will be reunited with My in Washington next week. It was a facinating story to listen to, rich with history and human kindness that the two have been able to share since there meeting.



I located a wireless hot spot so I should be able to make a few short updates during the day tomorrow, but I'll upload more pictures in the evening.
Check out the Sun-n-Fun website here: http://www.sun-n-fun.org

Whirlwind Travels

I'm in Winter Haven Florida after a couple days of whirlwind travels. I flew out from CVG to Fresno with a stop in Denver on Monday. Tuesday afternoon I flew to Tampa with a stop in Phoenix. I finally got to my room later last night. I'm working in Sarasota today and after ai drop my colleages off at the airport this afternoon, I'm headed over to Lakeland. I am planning on attending the evening program, "An Unlikely Reunion - Reconciliation in Vietnam". This will be the second time two former enemy pilots meet face to face since meeting in the skies over Vietnam.

Sun n Fun Mission

I won't be flying this week, at least not in the Diamond. I've got a few days traveling for business then I'm heading to Lakeland Florida for the 35th annual Sun-n-Fun fly in. I'll be reporting on the event beginning Wednesday evening for my local EAA chapter 174 based at Clermont County airport. Check back often late this week or you can follow me at @dalecraven on Twitter where I make frequent updates as long as I can get a wifi signal.