Thoughts on Sun-n-Fun

Well, the Sun-n-Fun fly-in at Lakeland is in the record books for another year and from a visitor's point of view it was, again, a success. There were the usual displays and exhibitors - one of my favorites is Virginia Bader and her work to preserve and commemorate the men and women who fought the desperate fight to win World War II ... Virginia not only sells great aviation artwork, she organizes symposiums where mortals like you and me can hear and meet the people from that vanishing generation. She is also a cousin of the great English pilot, Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader who flew against the Nazis despite having lost his legs in a flying accident before the war. His life was chronicled in a wonderful book - the first I checked out of a library at the ripe old age of maybe 11 - entitled Reach for the Sky.

Reading about my heroes as a boy was one thing - actually joining the ranks of the people who fly was entirely another. It's the difference between dreamers and doers. As a young teenager, I'd ride my bike to the airport at Silver Springs, Florida, and listen to the talk , watch the airplanes and just generally hang around. Sometimes, when the weather was ugly, the pilots would sit in front of the old fireplace (that never drew quite right, so there was a perpetual haze of smoke against the open-raftered ceiling) and tell stories ... occasionally they'd let me go get them a beer, just like occasionally they'd let me wash their airplane. I loved it. When I got to be 16, I wanted to take flying lessons but the instructor wouldn't take me as a student without a note from my mother. That wasn't going to happen, so I kept on doing what I'd always done and stayed an inside-outsider for a long time.

But I digress ...

This year, the best part of Lakeland for me was the new crop of Light Sport Aircraft ... their displays were constantly busy and judging from the happy faces, sales were being made. This is very good news for the flying community. Sure, there are new rules (some of which are even reasonable) and gas prices continue to climb but the essential element of aviation - people who want to be doers and not just dreamers - is there and there in abundance. All any of us have to do to see it is look around.

A fellow I know from Clearwater, Florida - Peter Hunt - won Reserve Grand Champion, homebuilt, kitbuilt, for his beautiful RV-6. Congratulations, Peter. (My son and I sub-leased his hangar while Peter was building the RV in his living room).

All in all, the weather at Lakeland was perfect the whole week of the show and the crowds were manageable. I like Lakeland because it is smaller than Oshkosh and I don't have this feeling of drinking from a fire hose to try to take it all in. Plus it's close to home.