This Is One Bizarre #SNF13 Post! No Airplanes??

Close-up of my detail work with 12" x 24" porcelain tile with glass/stone deco inlay

click any pic to enlarge

 No airplanes? Well, no airplane pictures in this post... but there are plenty of them down in Lakeland Florida as Sun 'n Fun 2013 has been underway since Tuesday April 9th. I had planned to either be on the way by now or maybe even already on-site to bring you some AirPigz coverage of the Spring Break for Pilots, but my day-job as a self-employed ceramic tile installer has gotten in the way. I'm currently on week #6 of a huge installation job that's 45 minutes away from my home that includes tile on several walls, above a curvy drywall soffit, on several floors, and even includes an extra large shower with an 11 foot ceiling and lots of cool details! It's a rather upscale job that has consumed my life lately and will continue to do so for another couple weeks.

All of the deco bays were cut by me, they are not pre cut!

 
 So, while many of my avgeek friends are gathered in the campground and are enjoying sunshine and airplanes at SNF13, I'm crawling around on the floor and up and down a ladder. I'm happy to have the work tho, no doubt about it. I've actually had a significant increase in my tile installing work in the last 18 months which has definitely made keeping things fresh on AirPigz quite a challenge, but I've been doing pretty well all things considered. However, this big job that's kinda far from home anyway has worn me down quite a bit and made it really tough these last few weeks. I'm at least hopeful that the increase in income from all this work will finally get me current once again as I plan to trade some cash for a flight review in a J-3 Cub up in Hartford Wisconsin before long. WooHoo! #LoveToFly

13" x 19" floor tiles with some artsy curves cut in... it's harder to do than it looks!
 

 I've  included some pix of my tile work from the last few days. This is only a small part of what I've been working on, but I thought some of you might find it interesting to see both what I do and the level of quality that I strive to achieve. I'm very pleased with the attention to detail that these samples show. I work alone, so everything you see in the tile work (not the stonework) is done by me... and the level of quality that I'm able to crank out these days is the greatest evidence I have that I should be building a flying machine! And yes, it's true that I still have a modified Volksplane (Project VP) out in the garage, but I have had neither the time nor the money to move that project forward. Sigh. It looks like one more year of slowly digging out from the financial devastation of 2008 and I will finally have myself in a position to be a real airplane builder once again.

Close-up of the tight tolerance between the edge metal and tile in the curve - nice!

 I sure hope everyone who was able to make the trip to SNF13 has a great time and I'll set my thoughts on visiting with you all at OSH13 : )

Hot! Air To Air Video & Stills With Holland, Goulian, Stewart And Coleman

 Really fab aviation photographer Jessica Ambats did a hot air-to-air photoshoot with Rob Holland, Michael Goulian, Skip Stewart and Kevin Coleman down at Sun-n-Fun, and this recently released video from the Nflightcam youtube channel takes us all along for the wild ride!

 Please join me in watching this awesome video... and in wishing we were any of the people in the air that sunny Florida day : )

Awesome video screenshot from the Jessica Ambats photoshoot done at Sun-n-Fun

#SNF12 - Thursday: Spring Break For Pilots Is Under Way! (13 Pix)

AeroShell Aerobatic Team on Tuesday looking fab in the Florida sky (photo: EyeNo)

(13 pix)

 If you're at Sun-n-Fun 2012 then you probably already know that 'spring break for pilots' actually began on Tuesday the 27th. I was able to make the trip from Indiana to Florida the last two years but just couldn't make it all come together for this year. However, my friend Ken Mist (@eyeno) from Canada was able to work his way south and has been sending me some photos for posting. Thanks Ken!

 So here's a little slice of what's happening at Lakeland Florida at Sun-n-Fun 2012:

Tuesday March 27th pix:

Commemorative Air Force B-29 FIFI is always a beautiful sight! (photo: EyeNo)

Lockheed XFV-1 tailsitter - always on display at the Florida Air Museum (photo: EyeNo)

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Caption Contest #55 - Fishing For A Winner!

 I still need to get some additional details on this unique hybrid, but I was told at Sun-n-Fun that it was very airworthy back in the day. I guess it actually looked essentially 'airworthy' went I got the picture, just maybe leaning really far over on the unconventional side of things : )

 What I do know is that 'Eric B.' cast out a winning caption and has earned a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011 - great job! It was a sweet batch of captions this time around - thanx to all who participated.

 Look for more of this harmless avgeek fun to get hauled up into the boat next Monday morning...

Caption Contest #55 - Ends Wednesday 4.13.11 At 9PM EDT

 The Caption Contest took a couple weeks off for me to squeeze Sun-n-Fun into the works, but today it's back... and this is a pic I took while there. I'll try to dig up some history on this amazing (?) creation, but til then it's your chance to pair it up with a great caption. And as is the practice of late, the person who comes out on top in this friendly avgeek competition will win a bacon sandwich at Oshkosh 2011!

 You've got til Wednesday evening at 9pm EDT to submit your clever/funny/cool captions. Then, I’ll pick the best 5 and put ’em in a poll for everyone to vote on for all day Thursday and Friday so we can find the winner. 

 The Rules: 

1) Max of 3 submissions per person

2) Submissions go in the 'comments' area 

3) Game ends Wednesday at 9pm EDT 

4) Keep it clean!

 Then, anyone can cast their vote starting Thursday morning and running thru til 9pm EDT Friday. The winner will be posted Saturday morning 4-16-11. So c'mon, grab a deck chair and let's go flying : )

Mystery Vortex Generators Identified - It's A T-45 Goshawk

 Here's the uncropped pic of the T-45 Goshawk wing from yesterday's Name The Plane game. Normally I would have had this posted sooner but I just had too much going on! There was also a little confusion as I had a semi correct answer show up overnight but it didn't include the 'MAKE' as the directions state. Turns out the 'make' on a T-45 is sort of a multiple choice answer... BAE and McDonnell Douglas partnered to build them, but now that MD is really Boeing, any of those three makers would have been correct enough to win.

 In the end it was Luke C that was the first to provide the correct make and model. So, it's bacon sandwich winnings at Oshkosh 2011 (if he's able to get there)  - that's a pretty sweet prize for figuring out what those vortex generators belong to. The picture below from Sun-n-Fun 2011 gives a little better idea of what this particular T-45 looked like. Sure looks like it would be fun to fly : )

BAE/McDonnell Douglas/Boeing T-45 Goshawk at Sun-n-Fun 2011

Sun, And Fun, Bring #SNF11 To A Close (16 Pix)

 Like I mentioned yesterday, I'm just a tad obsessed with the Pitts Model 12. Here are two more nearly perfect examples to check out. The blue one being refueled belongs to Greg Connell, and the red one is Kendal Simpson's with the cowling off showing the fab M-14 radial engine that makes the 12 the beast that it is. Wow.

 This STOL Zenith CH 750 was getting ready to head back home to Georgia. It was on display at the Zenith booth to replace the one that had been blown over in the big storm on Thursday. Several vendors faced some serious challenges in trying to do business in the storms aftermath.

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#SNF11 - A Great And Sunny Saturday (16 Pix)

 My Saturday morning at Sun-n-Fun 2011 started at the commercial exhibits not far from the camping area. This yellow and white biplane stood out right away as something special. Obviously not 'Pitts' special, but very cool nonetheless. It's the Fk12 Comet, a Rotax 912 LSA that promises fun in a way pretty much no other LSA could even dream about. The wings are fabric covered, but the structure underneath is all composite, and the fuselage is mostly welded steel tube with aluminum tube for the aft section. Lots of interesting and innovative thinking in this light, sporty, aircraft! 

 The American Legend display of modern Cubs included one with no fabric on it so all of the structure was visible. The use of modern materials and a variety of interesting design changes takes the timeless original Cub design even closer to perfection. I'm still dreaming about the one from yesterday on amphibious floats!

 After being hit so hard by the tornado on Thursday, the Air Cam display was looking almost back together. I was glad to see they hadn't given up after losing 4 airplanes... hopefully they'll head back home with several new orders on the books to take some of the sting out of a really rough year at SNF11.

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#SNF11 - Friday: Fun In The Sun! (Finally)

(16 pix) 

 With the damaging storm of Thursday over and gone, Friday began with a lot of mud on the Sun-n-Fun grounds. This scene above is oddly reminiscent of Oshkosh 2010 where muddy roads like this were all over. In another similarity to Oshkosh, wet grounds and mud weren't about to dampen the spirit of the event, and Friday wound up being a great day at SNF11.

 A quick run thru the commercial exhibit area first thing Friday morning revealed several vendors still in the process of cleaning up after the storm. Many of the temporary structures had collapsed as you would expect in such high winds. Some vendors were fortunate to only have displays damaged. Others, like the Air Cam people were left with a tremendous amount of damage to their aircraft.

 Three different Air Cam's can be seen in these pictures with devastating damage. A fourth airplane had been blown backward across the display area and also wound up with significant damage. Reports are indicating that the storm was possibly a tornado, and the very localized damage as seen here would seem to support that idea.

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#SNF11 - Severe Weather And A Day At 'Fantasy Of Flight' (16 Pix)

(16 pix) 

 The last several hours of my drive from Indiana to central Florida early Thursday were under low ceilings and rain, so I decided to start my Sun-n-Fun 2011 experience over at the Fantasy of Flight Museum since the weather wasn’t cooperating very well. The museum is about 20 miles northeast of Lakeland Linder airport were SNF takes place. Plus, the ‘Splash-In’ with seaplanes was scheduled to take place Thursday on Lake Agnes (right next to the museum) so it seemed like I had a plan. 

 As it turned out, the weather went from bad to worse. The Splash-In was cancelled and re-scheduled for Friday, but as you most likely already know, severe storms came thru the area in the afternoon (see the radar pic) causing substantial damage to a lot of aircraft and temporary structures at SNF. Fortunately it appears injuries were minimal… and as it turned out,  the museum site didn’t experience any damage at all that I’m aware of. 

 Getting Sun-n-Fun back on track will require a lot of effort, but I have no doubt that the job will get done. Similar to the challenges with extremely heavy rains at Oshkosh in 2010, the aviation community will come together and rise to the challenge. And while many people are dealing with the loss of their aircraft right now, we can all be thankful for minimal injuries, and for a very sunny weather forecast for the remaining days of SNF.

 The following 15 pictures and captions show some of the cool aircraft and aviation oriented experiences from my day at Fantasy of Flight. A lot of people were enjoying the chance to be an avgeek and stay out of the rain… and while this was my second visit to FoF, I have to say I enjoyed this time every bit as much as the first. It’s a great facility that I highly recommend you take time to experience anytime you’re in the area.

The Art Deco inspired entrance to the Fantasy of Flight museum. It was definitely an umbrella kind of day.

Fantasy of Flight is run by Kermit Weeks (arms folded) and he was seen all over the facility today… here he’s enjoying conversation with some people in the entrance area.  

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