Sun 'N Fun 2008, Lakeland FL

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Sun ‘n Fun Fly-in 2008

Sun 'n Fun Fly-in 2008, Lakeland, Florida

April 8th - 13th, 2008

By Dennis Kenney

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© January 2008 Dennis Kenney

Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In, April 8th – 13th

The annual Fly-in to Lakeland Linder Regional Airport is the second largest fly-in in America after Oshkosh. Take exit 25 from I-4 and follow the signs. Go through the lights on Highway 92 and Drane Field Road. The yellow Sun ‘n Fun sign off Pipkin Road is on the left after you go through the lights on Medulla Road and you’ll miss it the first time. Once you know what you’re doing, turning at the traffic light onto Medulla Road is the easiest way to Gate 52, which is just before the museum. Many of the local drivers stay in the fast (left) lane regardless of the traffic density. They love to smooch rear bumpers to speed up drivers going the legal speed limit.

I registered with Robin McFarland to volunteer for Sun ‘n Fun and some time before. The Early Bird volunteers are already entrenched in their RV parking spaces at the Early Bird campground. The Early Bird gets the camping space. Most of the Early Birds will migrate north to Oshkosh after the Sun ‘n Fun Fly-in leaving the Yearly Bird volunteers (full-time Florida residents) to cope with the Florida summer.

The first order of business for any fly-in volunteer is to locate all the indoor restrooms and showers. 2007 was the year of the portipotis; 2008 is going to be different.

Runway 9-27 Lakeland Linder Regional Airport

I’m the only person camping at the Back Acres campground south of the west end of the runway. Occasionally a locally-based Cessna Citation blasts my bedroom with his landing lights as he completes his takeoff checklist. Jerry, the electrician from Canada, tells me that campers will encroach on my campsite until I can’t move my arms as Sun ‘n Fun approaches. The sky clears occasionally so that I can see Orion and Mars overhead but the light pollution in all directions makes it look perpetually as if dawn is approaching. Just before February’s full moon, Jupiter, Venus and the remaining sliver of the moon formed a neat triangle. I can still see Venus and Jupiter in the morning after the stars have faded if the weather permits. The shuttle landed safely and there’s a total lunar eclipse tonight. The Big Dipper is high enough at this latitude for me to see some of the fainter stars in the Big Bear. I’m used to the Big Dipper lying down close to the horizon with the mountains hiding the rest of the Big Bear constellation.

Florida Air Museum

The Florida Air Museum is at the southwest corner of the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. There are special exhibits for Charles Lindberg and Howard Hughes. I found an article from the Detroit News while scanning the clipped articles album donated by John L. Ervin describing Hughes’ Robot. This pioneering flight control computer (autopilot), a secret Army computer, kept Hughes’ aircraft within 20 miles of its optimum flight path during his historic 14,000 mile journey in 1938. Besides cutting Lindberg’s flight time from New York to Paris in half, the flight pioneered airliner Artic routes and demonstrated that oceans and distance wouldn’t be a defense any longer from hostile forces. You can see most of the campus buildings from the observation deck at the airport terminal by looking across the main runway past the control tower and the building to the right of the tower.

Tom Davis Education Center

There’s a bunch of boy scouts at the center the day I met the volunteers/part-time employees, Ernie and Joyce Sanborn, at the Davis Center. Ernie and Joyce Sanborn showed me around the center as they busily prepared for the training for the boy scouts’ space merit badge training that night. I started using the Microsoft Flight Simulator when they came back after dinner. I learned later that Joyce’s cookies and fudge were some of the perks that came with volunteering at the Davis Center.

Howard Hughes’ XF-11 Fighter

Ellen Edmonstone has escaped the winds and snow of Canadian winters by volunteering to inventory the Howard Hughes documents - most recently his XF-11 fighter. Ellen has already worked on the HK-1 flying boat, the “Spruce Goose” or the flying lumberyard to some. I was sailing at the Naval Yacht Club at the Long Beach, California naval base when the Goose was pulled from its hanger to join the Queen Mary on exhibit. The Goose has moved north and is on display in Washington State.

(John & Martha) King School

I got started on Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight using Getting started with John and Martha King. Rod Machado got me started with a description of the Attitude Indicator and the Airspeed Indicator. The initial flying lesson involves a takeoff from Montgomery Field in San Diego where I used to watch a blimp do touch and gos from my drawing board on the fifth floor of one of Generous Dynamics’ buildings. I learn to use the throttle and tachometer and the heading bug on the Direction Indicator. Rod leads me through a 20-degree left and right turn with the stick and AI. After that it’s back to the barn for an assisted landing using flaps and throttle control. It’s discouraging. I’ve probably got 60 hours in a Cessna 172 and I’m rusty. Even worse, all my time simulating regional, corporate, military and commercial aircraft actually hurts me flying the Cessna 172 on Flight Simulator. I’m crawling again, almost as if I’d learned to walk on the moon.

I do the reading on the Wright Brothers’ first flight and the DC-3/C-47 Gooney Bird and call it a day. One of the pilots in my Air National Guard Unit at the former Dow AFB let me fly a C-47 for about 15 minutes back in the old days. Landing the aircraft (as an observer) in Augusta is the closest I want to come to a carrier landing. I also flew the unit’s T-33 (like the one in front of the Florida Air Museum). The Maniac (Maine Air National Guard) pilot was surprised how well I could handle a jet my first time in a jet. I had spent about 30 hours in the unit’s F-79 Scorpion fighter simulator.

There’s a Scorpion and the airframe of the nuclear-tipped Genie missile that was it’s primary armament at the Air Museum in Tucson next to the well-known F-86 Sabrejet.

Step on the Ball

The ball in the Turn Coordinator tells the pilot if a plane is skidding – sliding sideward in a turn or slipping – falling to the inside of a turn. The usual cause is the increase in drag on the wing on the outside of a turn (adverse yaw) which causes the nose of an aircraft to point out of a turn. Left rudder is required if the ball is to the left of center while pressure on the right rudder is required if the ball is on the right. Step on the ball. In modern aircraft with their higher speeds the horizontal stabilizer takes out some of the yaw but rudder control is still needed, especially at slower speed. A PC-based simulator can have the rudder control built in to allow beginning student to ignore the rudder (or not have rudder/brake pedals at all). Keyboard control of the rudder can be tedious.

Attitude, Power, Trim

Select the attitude required with the yoke or stick to perform a maneuver, adjust power with the throttle and then trim up the aircraft. After that tweak the controls to fine tune the inputs to the aircraft. Like they say in jets, trim continuously. Flying an actual aircraft is much easier than flying the Microsoft Flight Simulator because more of the outside is visible and kinetic senses are available.

Author’s Corner

Frank and Bonnie Kaitt run the Author’s Corner where aviation authors can sell and autograph their publications during the Sun ‘n Fun Fly-in. Frank and Wee Bonnie have selected the 15 authors for this year’s Authors’ Corner at Sun ‘n Fun 2008.

Life, Action, Memories and Adventure, 1942

I just scanned the first issue of LAMA – Volume 1, Number 1. LAMA, the barracks or the palace, formerly known as the Highlands Lake Hotel, became the baracks for the air cadets arriving at Albert Lodwick’s Lodwick’s Aviation Military Academy. The issue was dedicated to classes 42-D and E. I noted a Pilgrim from Stoneham, Massachusetts/Boston College – W. H. Dowd is the man without an accent. As Albert said in the publication, “Good Luck and Happy Landings.”

WAAS DAT? Wide Area Augmentation System

The Instrument Landing System (ILS) radios for landing on instruments under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) or as an aid to landing at any time only work if the selected runway has ILS capabilities. WAAS allows pilots to fly GPS-aided approaches with decision heights as low as 200 feet above ground level to hundreds of American airports without ground-based navigation aids.

EAA Chapter 454 February 2008 Meeting

Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 454 meets on campus at the Sun ‘n Fun pavillion. Dr. Sherrod Campbell’s wife Delores described their Queenland flyabout down under in Australia with rented Cessna 172s. Dr. Campbell interjected comments occasionally to keep Delores on track. Chapter 454 has monthly workshops on aviation subjects.

Yuri’s Night 2008

April 12th is the 27th anniversary of the STS-1 Columbia flight piloted by John Young and Bob Crippen. 20 years earlier Yuri Gagarin rode his Vostok 1 into Earth orbit whistling, “The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows, where her son flies in the sky.” Yuri’s Night has turned into an international party, NASA’s party in Houston sponsored by Boeing being the biggest in North America. The closest party in Florida open to the public is the National Space Society’s Cocoa Beach blast-off. Kennedy Space Center will have an invitation-only get together. April 12th is the Saturday of the Sun ‘n Fun Fly-in. Yuri’s Night will be observed.

Aviation Merit Badge

Knowledge of the types of aircraft, an aircraft’s principle components, how an aircraft flies and is controlled have to be demonstrated. Practical tasks and field trips to an airport, aviation museum or FAA facility are required. See boyscouttrail.com for more detailed information.

Space Exploration Merit Badge

A boy scout must demonstrate specific knowledge about the history, policy and technology of space exploration. He must build, launch and recover a model rocket. The academics for the space badge can be obtained at both the Davis Education Center and the Kennedy Space Center but launching of model rockets and camping is not allowed at KSC. An activity describing a NASA rocket may be substituted for the model rocket launch at locations not allowing model rocket launches.

Environment Merit Badge

Hanger Flying

Manned ornithopter flights, the first shuttle flight (STS-1 Columbia) and flying Voodoos all enter the stream of conversation as well as Blue Grass festivals and warbird shows.

Valiant Air Command Warbird Show 2008 - March 12th – 16th

I attended the show at the Florida Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Florida.

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, July 28th – August 3rd

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2008 is scheduled for July 28th to August 3rd.

Florida Jets 2008 – March 6th – 9th

I had to pay close attention the first day to determine if I was watching a real Cessna Citation or a super-scale radio-controlled model jet when an aircraft flew by. Several days ago it was just me and the Sandhill Cranes in the Back Acres campground. Today the model jets have taken over the airspace and vendor tents are everywhere. Full-scale aircraft took over the runway periodically interrupting the super-scale jet flights. One of the cranes asked me, “Who are these guys, anyway?”

I was building model jets when most of these people were in diapers, only we called them cruise missiles in those days. I was involved in flight testing the General Dynamics Convair Tomahawk air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) in the fly-off which Boeing won. The blue-suiters wouldn’t have bought torpedoes to fire from their aircraft anyway. 25 years later, thousands of Tomahawks have been deployed and I never hear anything about the Boeing variant. The Williams jet engines which are common in the new personal jets were developed with governmental funding through the cruise missile program. Sunday made up for the heavy winds and Saturday and almost everybody went home happy.

Flight Safety

American Legion Post 4, Lakeland

Friday has a fish fry and Toni and Trish will be playing tomorrow (Saturday) night. Smoking is allowed at the facility.

Mud ‘n Fun 2008

Lakeland and the Sun ‘n Fun campus are not strangers to rain and mud. Florida got its share of April showers. I didn’t see any mention of an April 12th celebration of Yuri’s Night at this year’s fly-in or in the Boston area either, for that matter.

Author info

Dennis Kenney is the author of Star of Fire, an alternate history of the exploration of Mars, which can be freely downloaded at StarOfFire.com. The Word version has the latest revisions. I arrive in Boston in time to catch the last? winter storm of the year. Lose the Midwest and South, Dude. I’m passing up the two fly-ins in Florida and Wisconsin. Now where am I going to spend the spring? Alamogordo, Bare Foot, New Orleans, Acadia National Park, Tucson, Roswell or Chihuahua?