Sun n Fun
Last week I flew the Citabria down to Sun n Fun in Lakeland, Florida. It's the second biggest fly-in (about a third the size of our very own AirVenture in Oshkosh). I had to be there for a meeting but until the last minute wasn't sure how to travel down. I held off buying an airline ticket in the hope the weather would be OK for a flight and the plane would come out of maintenance in time. Everything came together at the last minute - a huge chunk of good weather came along and the plane got fixed. See photos (captured from the video camera) for rest of story. Gregg Deimer came along.
We got the first 250 miles under our belts after work on Wednesday evening flying down to Crawfordsville, Indiana. Apparently one of the "100 greatest small towns in the USA". The main attraction was an incredible guy called Dennis who was at the hotel karaoke and absolutely the worst singer in history. It is my eternal regret that I never videotaped him... Anyway here's the Citabria parked at the airport.
Final approach to the first stop next morning - Dayton, Tennessee. The great thing about flying cross country in the USA is you have no real idea where you'll land when you take off and every landing is a new discovery.
Gregg & Adam.
We've skipped about 3 days here. Landed in Valdosta, Georgia on the way down and got into Lakeland about 30 minutes before sunset on Thursday evening. It certainly got the old adrenaline flowing, incredible busy with dozens of planes in the sky at the same time and not entirely under control... touching down was a good feeling! Overall there's probably a couple of thousand planes on the field.
I went up in a Cessna 210 with the EAA photo crew on an air-to-air photo mission for one of the magazines. It was interesting. Here's Jim Koepnick shooting out of the rear cargo door. We're doing an exhibition for the museum with Jim opening May 5. Bruce Moore was the pilot.
First subject was this KR-2. Second was some Canadian thing called a Tundra.
World's biggest smoke ring... result of pyro during the warbirds air show.
Speaking of which, here's the beginning of the Wall of Fire.
Even so far away, you can genuinely "feel the heat"!
Hooters Balloon and Aeroshell display team at the start of the night air show.
Steve Oliver doing his Pepsi Skydancer routine. Pretty skilled to be doing serious aerobatics in the pitch dark, and I've no idea what all that pyro does to his night vision.
Can't remember who this was but he performed with the Foo Fighters as his backing music which was a bit different from the usual US patriotic guff.
The show "finale" was an Elvis impersonator parachuting in to perform a concert. Sounds an awful lot better than it was...
Morning of departure (Sunday) was also the mass balloon launch.
There they go.
Goodbye Sun n Fun.
We hopped over to Kermit Weeks' museum where the Museum Committee meeting was being held. This was a cool airport to get in the logbook, because Kermit doesn't allow many people to land there. And it's always nice to land a taildragger on grass, even if I did bounce it.
About 15 minutes after landing we were completely upstaged by Jimmy Leeward who arrived at the meeting in his racing P-51 Cloud Dancer!
After the meeting we headed for home. Stopped in Perry, Georgia on the way back up and overnighted in Livingston, Tennessee which was like the kind of town you'd find in "Deliverance"... very back-woods. The saving grace was the airport parrot which could talk really good and I'm certain said my name. The last 500 miles were the least fun with slightly dodgy weather (a bit windy & bumpy) and slow going with a headwind. We stopped in Bloomington, Indiana where we bumped into Roger Shadick with his Yak 52 on the way home to Eagle River. Final stop Waukesha, Wisconsin where there was a stroppy arse of an air traffic controller.
We flew up the low-level VFR corridor along the lakefront by Chicago. Nowhere to go except the water if the engine quits, but worth it for the view. Here's Soldier Field.
And the skyscapers in the business district.
After the lovely sunshine of Florida, back to the freezing cold of Osh-Vegas!
So there you have it. Oshkosh to Lakeland and back is 2018 nautical miles (that's about 2322 statute miles) so it was quite a trek really. We put 27 hours on the tachometer, and probably did about 23 or 24 hours actual flight time. There have been some whole years when I haven't done that much flying, and this got squeezed into less than a week!
6:15:07 PM 
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