I just came back from Sun N Fun #51. This is the fifty first year of this Florida based fly in, airshow, and trade show. The show started in 1974. I made my first trip down there in 1975.
My friend David Rodgers and I got in an old Piper Apache and headed down to Lakeland Florida to see this big airshow. Of course in 1975 things were a bit difference than they are now in the aviation world. Airspace and navigation was a lot different. Most of my friends would follow Interstate I-95 or follow the Atlantic coast for a trip to Florida. You could do this with out any trouble. There were very few places you couldn’t fly and you didn’t have to report to many control towers or air traffic control centers. It was great. Keep the ocean on your left or right depending on where you wanted to go and Florida was a friendly place to navigate.
David and I went down the coast. The Piper Apache was a twin-engine plane that would go about 150 miles per hour. We took off from Manning and picked up the Atlantic coast somewhere south of Charleston. We leveled off about fifty feet off the ground and just skimmed along the beach. If there was a big pier in the way we just climbed up to 100 feet and jumped over it. We took turns flying and in about three hours we were at the big airshow.
After a big day of watching flying, talking with aviator friends and seeing new and exciting stuff we loaded up and flew back home that night. That was a fun trip and David and I still talk about it.
That was fifty years ago.
That started a long string of going down to Lakeland for the airshow. Over the years the show grew bigger and more popular. It was usually the first airshow of the year and it was like the airshow start of spring.
I didn’t make every year but for many years I would somehow get a ride down to the airshow. Over the years, we went in a variety of airplanes from tiny two seaters to big twin-engine planes. Some years we would stay a couple of days but mostly we would go for one day and fly back that night. One year I stayed in a camper with some friends.
All this was a big adventure. Not only did we get to fly a long and exciting trip, we saw lots of our friends, fellow aviators and our heroes in the flying world. All that in just one day.
Now fifty years have passed and the show is a lot different. The show didn’t change so much as I have changed. The flight down there is still great. All the neat things that are for sale reveal my covetous nature as I walk around and say, “I want that and that and that. I’d love one of those.” In the last five decades, I’ve bought, used or tried that, that, and that. It is as bad as taking grandpa to the toy store. He doesn’t want so much stuff now.
Lots of the heroes have passed away and some of the old ones don’t look so big to me anymore. This getting old stuff is rough. Well, after all this, I’m still thinking about going down to Florida for the show next year. I don’t really need anything and I done lots of things on these trips from giving flying lessons, to landing on the beach, to landing on some islands. Probably need to go back and check on how many trips I did take to the airshow. That will be a year away now. The good is one more trip down there wouldn’t hurt.
