If you don’t live in/near Florida, I recommend that you get a last-minute flight to Orlando or Tampa and then drive about one hour to Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland.
I went on Tuesday, the first day. Here are a few photos.
P-51 Mustang and NASA’s Super Guppy:
Feel better about flying… the flight controls get disconnected and reconnected every time the plane is loaded or unloaded.
Placid Lassie is looking great despite her many trips to Europe for D-Day commemorations:
Today, it’s tough to imagine the sacrifices that Americans were willing to make to defeat Germany, which never had the same “Death to America” passion that Iran has maintained for 47 years. 2,501 U.S. soldiers died on D-Day and more than 3,000 French civilians were killed plus as many as 19,000 civilians killed in pre-invasion bombing.
Speaking of the Islamic Republic of Iran, here’s an unwelcome A-10 Warthog:
A lot of the most interesting planes are in the parking and camping areas. Here’s a 1947 Antonov biplane, for example:
And who doesn’t love a Grumman boat-hull seaplane?
Cirrus puts on a good display and has a couple of lounges and viewing areas for owners:
How they get people to move from the 200/210-hp SR20 to the 310-hp SR22:
I enjoyed talking to Dave Pascoe, the founder and operator of LiveATC.net. I learned that the service has a $5 app that makes using it much more convenient on mobile devices. Dave generously volunteers at Sun ‘n Fun Radio:
(Why doesn’t the FCC require that mobile phones have built-in FM radio reception at least, to keep communities together? Streaming radio over mobile data isn’t reliable. AM would be tough due to the antenna requirements, but maybe some RF genius could find a way?)
The secret Quiet Birdmen have a not-to-secret secret private club next to the radio station:
The high school at the airport still has a Coronapanic sign on a side door (see When will we feel safe enough to remove our coronapanic signs? (2024; the answer is “not before 2027”?)):
What if you’re irrational and choose to fly in? The NOTAM explains what to do. All of the waypoints seem to be in the Garmin 430 database (or maybe I entered them in during a previous trip?). I arrived mid-morning on the first day (Tuesday) and, therefore, the ATIS said to start at Fantasy of Flight rather than at Lake Parker. It’s somewhat unnerving to be 1 mile behind the plane in front and 1 mile in front of the plane in back, but it sort of works if everyone is precise about 100 knots and 1200′. It might have been smarter to file IFR and land on the big runway.
Not the best plane for flying the above procedure, but the under-wing graffiti is interesting. “N1972” makes sense for registration of this G650ER because that’s the year that Nike-brand shoes were introduced. I will give Nike credit for registering this to their own corporation instead of trying to hide it in a trust or LLC. In Stuart, Florida as I was preflighting the venerable Cirrus SR20-G2.
phones should also receive local TV channels. Unfortunately the industry in the US standardized on an inferior waveform (ATSC) for HDTV and is trying to dig itself out of that hole