Sun 'n Fun 99 Report (18-April-99)

Unlike the low pressure dome that cut off Florida from the outside world last year, SnF '99 was greeted with high pressure, clear skies and mostly smooth sailing. Thousands of visitors streamed into Lakeland's Linder Field (LAL) on the Saturday before Sun 'n Fun's official Sunday opening, paying $15 a head for the pleasure of watching forklifts carry crates and vendors scramble to set up their booths. Many of the early arrivals seemed content to snoop around a bit, purchase a $4 lemonade and haul their lawn chairs down to the flight line to gawk at the nonstop landings.

By Sunday morning, the forklifts were stowed, the vendors and exhibits were ready and the gates were thrown open for real: Sun 'n Fun '99 had begun! The seven-day aviation event is second in attendance only to EAA Airventure Oshkosh, but volunteers at SnF say that their status just encourages them to try harder. Their efforts appear to be working. According to estimates released by SnF, crowds over the first three days of the show swelled to 350,000 souls. Media representatives know a good thing, too. Five hundred forty-three writers, reporters and photographers from 32 states and 22 foreign countries registered to cover the event. A fair number of them actually showed up, spending their days bumming rides in different airplanes and eating whatever free food was available. Media people have found there are two types who come to SnF. Those visitors who are disappointed that the Florida event isn't as large as OSH and others who are ever so happy that it isn't.

Yelling "Fire" At A Crowded Airshow

As Roseanne Roseannadanna said, "It's always something." Sun 'n Fun officials would definitely agree. In years past, the event has dealt with extreme rain, heat, even snow, but this year brought a first. Fire. Most of Florida is as parched as dry-rotted two-year-old cordwood, prompting Governor Jeb Bush to declare a state of fire emergency. That emergency got pretty close to SnF on the Thursday of the show. Flames and thick smoke from a nearby wildfire -- which local officials later determined had been deliberately set -- prompted the evacuation of about 10,000 visitors, cancelled the airshow, closed the runway and prompted worried airplane owners to grab jugs of water and stand guard over their craft. Whipped by 30-mph winds, the flames swept across acres of dry fields and changed direction often, jumping from spot to spot. It took air power -- two Air National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters and a P-3 Orion tanker dropping water and flame retardant -- to get the blaze under control. The flames never threatened the fly-in, but smoke and ash caused problems enough. It will likely be a Sun 'n Fun those attending won't forget.

Meet Miz Jane

FAA Administrator Jane Garvey missed the fire, but she did come away from SnF with a slightly sunburned nose. Garvey tries to go to both SnF and EAA AirVenture Oshkosh every year so she can get a feel for what pilots are saying. After the general session, she sat down with members of the aviation media for a freewheeling series of questions and answers that touched on Y2K, overzealous inspectors and even on Vice President Al Gore.

Garvey laughed as she dispelled a rumor that she is leaving the FAA to work in the Gore presidential campaign. Though the two are friends, she has not been asked to take the job, nor would she want it, she told reporters. On another very political note, Garvey admitted that, although there is occasionally tension in dealings between the FAA and the Department of Transportation, she is not pushing to remove the FAA from the DOT's umbrella. She says she is happy that FAA, unlike other independent organizations, has cabinet-level input. "I have a strong, supportive relationship with DOT chief Rodney Slater," she said. "Some other agencies -- the NTSB, NASA -- don't have that same voice in the cabinet." The administrator was also pleased at the outcome of Y2K testing in Denver earlier in the week and reiterated her plan to fly coast-to-coast on January 1, 2000. "I asked my husband if he would join me, and he said, no, but I'll drive you to the airport," she laughed. "I don't know which airline it will be yet, but I do know it will be coach. I just hope I get an exit row."

The discussion turned serious when Garvey focused on the challenges she says are facing her agency: balance, consistency and clarity. She returned several times to the importance of streamlining guidance, which will help her inspectors in the field. She believes they often take the rap when they try to interpret guidance sent out from Washington that is "ambiguous and not clear." She added that she wants the FAA "to look at every single policy and make sure that it's straightforward and clear and there is some consistency. What we need to remember is that there are still human beings interpreting that policy." And, AVweb would be remiss in not pointing out, humans trying to adhere to those policies.

Working Smarter, Not Harder

Another challenge facing the FAA is making the shift to "systems" instead of "every nut and bolt." Garvey says budget constraints are forcing the agency to work smarter, which means that they must focus on overall systems. Instead of checking every little detail, she said that she wants her agency to simply ask whether maintenance and training programs are working. When told of one Florida pilot who had been ramp-checked ten times in one year by the same two inspectors, she said that apparent overzealousness should not be tolerated. Though the issue of an ombudsman to work on behalf of pilots was again brought up, Garvey told reporters the best thing for pilots who feel they are being harassed to do is go to the inspector's boss, or higher. "We need to figure out if there's a broader problem, if there's something going on at the FSDO there that makes them overzealous and I think that kind of raising of the issue to us allows us to take a harder look," she said. "We must constantly ask ourselves: 'Is what I am doing enhancing or advancing safety?'"

Along those same lines, Garvey said that it is not the fault of the new air traffic controller's contract that inspectors are being told to cancel trips. "They (NATCA) were an easy red herring, I guess," she told AVweb. That fault lies with the fact that the FAA got a 6 percent raise in its operational budget and a 7 percent increase in mandatory spending for things like the retirement system and federal raises. "We had a proposal for user fees for overflights and we had anticipated we would come pretty close to raising all of that and that was overturned by the court and we had to absorb it," Garvey added. She said that the NATCA total was a very small piece of the equation and was absorbed by air traffic. Still, the tight money is a major concern and she knows the impact it is having on the flight standards branch at the FAA. The agency is in the process of putting together a supplemental budget request that will spell out in detail the impact the tight budget is having. "In our worst-case scenario, we won't have the money until the end of the year." She stressed again the FAA's need to use people in the very best possible way, "which is one reason why we don't need to do unnecessary ramp checks because we have more critical needs," she explained.

A Black Cloud Over The Silver Anniversary

Normally, US Aviator owner and writer Jim "Zoom" Campbell lets his presence be known at the "Meet the Administrator" get-together. This year, he wasn’t there—nor was he anywhere else on the SnF grounds. Campbell was told several weeks ago he was persona non grata at the event, and was threatened with arrest if he tried to come on site, even as a member of the working media. Although one might think Campbell would have a strong First Amendment argument that freedom of the press should prevail, a Florida court ruled otherwise, saying that since SnF takes no local, state or federal dollars, it is a private event and can allow in whichever journalists it so chooses. Campbell held a news conference at the LAL terminal building off the SnF grounds where he made his case to local television and newspaper reporters that SnF is not a private event and does indeed take local money. He handed out a letter from the Central Flight Visitors & Convention Bureau confirming $40,500 of 1998-99 Tourist Development Council budget dollars went to SnF, which he says supports his contention the event should not be considered a private one.

He took his letter to the Polk County Commission Tuesday morning, but they agreed they had no jurisdiction in the dispute, and left it up to the courts. Campbell, who says he is out thousands of dollars in legal fees, does not have the $10,000 he says it will take to push the ruling to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Campbell feels his First Amendment rights have been trampled, and worries what precedent it may set when "other reporters say things SnF doesn’t like." Campbell says he will continue to raise issues he believes pertain to safety, and he will continue going to other airshows like Copper State, Arlington and Oshkosh, which haven’t banned him. Worse than the banning itself, Campbell claims SnF officials have engaged in concerted "character assassination, making claims that are blatantly untrue." "My ability to raise the alarm (on dangerous products) has been stomped flat", Campbell told AVweb. One supporter in the crowd agreed. "No matter what people may think of Jim or what he’s written, he’s a recognized journalist who’s been banned from covering a public event." SnF officials were tight-lipped about the events, referring all to a short typed statement that said they regretted their differences couldn’t be resolved. They refused to make any comment in response to the press conference.

Oh, The People You'll Meet

Some Candy, Little Girl?

One of the reasons all media love to cover events like SnF is because there's so much to do and so many interesting people to meet. Take Jack Yoder, for instance. Yoder, a pipefitter/welder from Michigan, has a great sense of humor because he has to. He spent five years, 3,500 hours and $55,000 building his two-seat Osprey GP-4. Then, he went and painted it pink. Pepto-Bismol pink. Plastic-pink-flamingo-in-the-front-yard pink. A pink that has been known to stop more than one airshow visitor dead in his tracks. Yoder compares the color to cotton candy -- which is the name he's put on the side -- but once you paint your plane that shade of pink, what it's called is essentially out of your hands.

"I don't have a problem with my masculinity," Jack laughingly tells AVweb. "When I go someplace, people remember that I've been there." Jack is one of those EAA types who lives to get bondo on his hands and grease under his fingernails: He's happiest when he's got a pile of plans in one corner and a pile of wood in another. He certainly got his wish with the little Osprey. Even after first building another plane and 19 houses, the project was a daunting task that might have stopped a mere mortal in his tracks. The little two-seater came as 57 sheets of blueprints in a 6-inch roll. "My first thought," Jack said, "was, where are the rest of the dimensions?" Instead of letting the project overwhelm him, he took it one measurement, one weld, one nail at a time. Nearly five years to the day later, Jack took his 260-hp bird up for her maiden voyage. That was 1996, and he's been tickled pink ever since.

Beaucoups Of Bückers

One of the major attractions of a big fly-in is that there are so many truly neat planes parked in one spot. Custom planes, warbirds, kitplanes, classics, the newest, fastest, production models. It's while walking around an event like SnF that aviation-loving visitors come to the realization that they want far too many planes and have far too little money to purchase them. Maybe they should take Victor Grondzki's story to heart. The 78-year-old Live Oak, Fla., man fell in love some years ago with the lines and style of the classic WWII German Bücker-Jungman. He did his homework, researched the planes, found out as much as he could and, along the way, discovered that some Spanish-made Bückers had been abandoned in the Spanish desert. In return for rebuilding one for someone else, he was given a pile of Bücker parts of his very own. Vic and his son Larry launched into the renovation project, completing that first Bücker, then their own. Now, they are working on a third one to sell. Their 1955 model is a showstopper, a past champion. Vic and his son, whom Grondzki calls his "best friend" put in long hours together working, measuring every inch of the plane to make certain the 1942 camo markings were absolutely perfect, that everything else was just as it should be. On one side of the plane is painted a heart, which Vic tells AVweb stands for the German heartland, but which could also stand for what the little plane has stolen from Grondzki and his son.

Here Come Da Judges

It's planes like Vic's and Jack's that make Pat Wheeler, Jennie Dykes, Bob Herman, and Dick Ditslear so enjoy their work. AVweb caught up with the SnF airplane judges in the homebuilt area where the four were swarming over planes like Florida fire ants on unsuspecting feet. All four are old friends and each has a strong aviation background: FBO owner, pilot, airplane builder. They come back year after year not because they have to and certainly not because they get paid -- "All the sand you can eat!" yells Dick -- but because they have fun. At each plane, they methodically check off grading boxes on their scorecards, with 100 points being the highest. "It's not always the showiest plane that wins," Pat tells AVweb, "it's the workmanship." The four also want to be certain the person who owns the plane and is showing the plane built the plane. Passing someone else's work off as your own is a no-no. One builder/owner is so eager to show what he has done, he's flown all the way from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Miquel Uribe Caballeda talks to the judges about his first plane ever, a Kitfox. The little two-seater was Caballeda's first project and, not only did he build the plane, he hung the engine, did the painting, the interior, and built custom under-seat storage compartments. It was so much fun Caballeda has started on his second project, an RV-8. That's job security to the judges. They laughingly agree to meet back at the same time, same place next year.

Rocketman Bohannon's New Bird Takes Flight

It's not as much a stretch as you might think from cropduster pilot to airshow racer. Need proof? Meet Bruce Bohannon. Bohannon's love of flying was inspired at the age of 12 when he first watched a cropduster taking off from a local field. Six years later, Bohannon was flying for the same company. Now, he's one of the big names in airshow racing records: He's used to getting to the top -- fast. For several years, he and his plane "Pushy Galore" have been the team to beat, the team voted most likely to streak skyward first. But in a classic case of "If it ain't broke, go on and fix it," Bohannon and Pushy have parted company. After winning the Class C-1a time-to-climb records for 3,000, 6,000, and 9,000 meters, Pushy has been retired to the EAA Museum in Oshkosh. Now, Bohannon has set his sights on the heavier aircraft class records and has a new sponsor and a new plane to help him do it.

At Sun 'n Fun, Bohannon introduced his sponsor, Exxon, and his plane, a cool cat by the name of "Flying Tiger." Bohannon's bird, called the Bohannon B-1, was basically designed around him. It incorporates pieces and parts from an RV-3, -4,-6 and -8, plus a few items from a Pitts and from a Harmon Rocket. The stock Mattituck red/gold overhauled 280-hp Lycoming IO-540 in "Tiger" will be supplemented during the climb by 200 pounds of nitrous oxide which will radically increase the engine's power. Bohannon tells AVweb this is nothing pilots should try at home unless they have very deep pockets. "It costs gobs. Mattituck pulls the engine after every flight. For the most part, they reassemble it and send it back. Everything we do is horribly expensive." Bohannon hopes to have the test flights done and be feeling comfortable enough with the plane to attempt the 3,000 meter time-to-climb in C-1b at Oshkosh and, after that, the sky is literally the limit. His plans are to set two time-to-climb world records per year and then some city-to-city speed records. After setting all possible records in C-1b, his team intends to start "poking around outside our weight class." If you're at OSH, and see Bohannon, better wave fast or he'll be gone.

Declan Keating: Man On A Mission

Great Britain doesn't have airshows quite as large as SnF, so that forced Declan Keating to come to Florida. Not that he was upset, mind you. Keating is one of the people responsible for tending to the media covering the Popular Flying Association (PFA) Air Rally in Cranfield, England, over the Fourth of July weekend. The PFA Rally is Britain's biggest general aviation event and, this year, it should attract 1,900 planes. To get a better feel for his duties and to spread the word about his rally, Keating came to America, volunteering to spend his vacation doing whatever the folks at the SnF media center needed him to do. "Ferrying journalists, mainly," he joked.

Keating, born in Dublin, Ireland, but now living in Oxford, England, talked to AVweb at length about the restrictions on flying in Great Britain and the high costs involved. Even landing at a small grass airstrip costs 10 British pounds, the equivalent of about 20 U.S. dollars, and puts flying out of the reach of many people. One recent positive change is the increase in the weight limits of microlights, which Americans know as ultralights. Medical requirements for flying microlights aren't as tight, and Keating hopes that will be a spark that will get more people into aviation. Keating got into flying about 20 years ago. As a child, he dreamt of being an airline pilot but got into the rarified air of investments and mortgages. No matter. For three days every July, Keating and his aviation-loving friends fly high. To get more information about the PFA Rally, Declan invites you to visit their web site.

A Sun 'n Fun First: All Quiet Or You'll Miss It

Visitors to Sun 'n Fun witnessed a first on Tuesday, but many of them might not have even realized it. In the middle of the smoke-belching, fire-breathing big engine routines during the afternoon airshow came the silence of Manfred Radius and his H101 Salto Glider. Radius was towed to 6,000 feet above LAL and released to perform his snap rolls and tail slides, his rolls and vertical 8's. He also did something no other glider pilot has managed to do at a U.S. airshow: He made the first double inverted ribbon cut. The German-born Radius has been flying gliders since he was 17 years old. He admits the double inverted ribbon cut is difficult, which is why more people don't do it. "What is important is the setup," he told AVweb. "The setup is a tailslide -- I get to the top at about 1,100 feet, then come to a stop." From there, he goes into an inverted dive at redline speed, streaking along the ground upside-down at a mere eight to 25 feet. "Only when the dive gets shallow, can I see the ribbon. If I hit the ground with my glider, I'm dead." So what does Radius plan to attempt next? "I've no idea," he says, "It's hard to top." With that, Radius was gone, headed for his next airshow and his ribbon blowing in the breeze.

Cash, Check, Credit Card: New Stuff At SnF

Man, These Harnesses Are Slick!

With so many media members in one place, many companies hold announcements until the big airshows to get more bang for their buck. It was no different at this year's SnF, as several new goodies got the green light. Unison added some color to the proceedings with the announcement that their standard gray Slick Harnesses are now available in blue, black, yellow, and red. General Aviation Marketing Manager Jim Melvin told AVweb, "Color is a personal preference. Our focus groups told us the most popular colors and we went from there." There's more going on than just the rainbow, though. Unison has added a lot of little features to make the harnesses easier to install and give them an even longer life. There is additional wrench flat area so the harness will attach easier to the spark plug, the nut has been lengthened to make it easier to work with, the electrode spring was beefed up to give it a longer life and more. "It's the little things, " says Melvin. "We listen to what our customers and FBOs are telling us." All Unison's harnesses will include the upgrades; color will add about $10 to the basic cost. The new colored harnesses should be available at dealers now.

GARMIN and Sandel Avionics Join Forces

Although AVweb announced it last week, GARMIN International and Sandel waited until SnF to formally rollout a compatible software package designed to save pilots a lot of money and a fair amount of hassle. The newly-created ARINC 429-standard serial interface will greatly simplify the installation process between GARMIN's GNS 430 GPS/moving map and Sandel's SN3308 electronic HSI. The new interface will use only six wires instead of 50 and should save thousands of dollars in labor costs. With the two pieces of equipment, pilots will have a GPS/comm with VOR, LOC and glideslope, plus a full-color moving map with detailed database. The Sandel SN3308 ColorMap serves as an HSI, RMI, moving map and Stormscope display.

AlliedSignal Offers New KLN 94

Meanwhile, the decision over which GPS moving map display to purchase just got a bit tougher. AlliedSignal unveiled their new KLN 94 that not only offers a color moving map, but geographical features such as roads, rivers, lakes, cities and towers as well as navigational information. To save on installation, the KLN 94 will fit a standard six and one-fourth-inch panel opening for GPS and Loran systems. Like the KLN 89B, the KLN 94 will be certified for IFR flight. The KLN 94 offers two new features, Quick Tune and Vectors to Final. Vectors to Final reduces button pushing in the early stages of an instrument approach as the pilot receives vectors. Quick Tune enables the pilot to export a frequency directly from the KLN 94's database to a Bendix/King 155A nav/comm radio, eliminating the need to dial the frequency by hand. Initial deliveries of the $5,190 units are expected by mid-2000. AlliedSignal has also inked a deal with Florida's Micco Aircraft Company to provide Bendix/King as the standard avionics on the Micco SP-20 and the soon-to-be-produced Micco SP-26.

Move Over Snoopy, It's A Sopwith Pup

Big biplane builder Steve Culp of Shreveport, La., has ascended to the level of fabrication expert in the kitplane industry. He now spends a good portion of his days answering building questions and debating the finer points of TIG versus oxy welding (TIG is better he says, hands down). His showy green and yellow Culp's Special always attracts a crowd and when the powerful Russian M-14P engine cranks up, lets out a throaty roar and belches its wake-up smoke, bystanders realize something vertical is about to happen. Culp loves to have fun with his planes, but in all his years of flying and building, he hadn't given much thought to resurrecting a World War I bird, until now. He has spent hours poring over plans for an original 1917 Sopwith Pup, docile big brother of the hard-to-fly Sopwith Camel, increasing strength here, adding or subtracting weight there. He decided that not only would he build a Pup, he would hang one of his favorite Russian engines on the nose, give it added power, make it fully aerobatic, yet keep it looking like a WWI vet. Other people are apparently excited about him remaking history, too. He's received 12 orders for components, but wants one of the first ones built to be his very own. In an airshow world dominated by Extra 300s and sleek production models, he thinks his Sopwith Pup complete with machine guns will be what people remember.

Buon Giorno, AviaBellanca

There was a lot old and a lot new at SnF and then there were the new things that looked old. The retro-looking AviaBellanca SkyRocket III got its share of gawkers. The six-place SkyRocket III single was "reintroduced" to the public at Oshkosh in 1997 and since then the Reston, Va.-based company has sold 17 kits and gotten 2,000 requests for information. The big, showy all-composite plane is promised to be one fast bird. It will cruise at 327 mph on a 435-hp engine, with a max speed at 20,000 feet of 340 mph. The prototype, SkyRocket II, holds five official FAI-sanctioned speed records, including 326.5 mph over a 311-mile closed course. If turning wrenches isn't for you, AviaBellanca President John Clark says it shouldn't be too long until the factory can produce the plane as it was meant to be: a FAR Part 23 certified production model. Then, all that speed can be yours for just money.

Bye, Bye Now

Y'all Come Back Now, You Hear?

If you didn't get to this year's SnF, there's always Oshkosh, or even next year's SnF. But, you shouldn't go too many years without experiencing first-hand black dirt on white legs, a "real" redneck, wildly overpriced ice cream bars and tons of great aviation stuff that you want so desperately you can feel it in your tired, hot bones. SnF is a place to sit, dream, walk, dream, and people-watch until you can't take anymore. It's a place you can smell the leather in a shiny new Luscombe 8F, close your eyes and feel the warm breeze on your face, marvel at the fact that Bob Hoover really does still have "it" and be completely unashamed about plopping down on the grass, dirt and all, and staring at the sky until your neck hurts. It's a place you find shade under the wing of a weather-beaten little light plane, and watch the scruffy-bearded pilot of the little yellow Kolb fly the ultralight like it is an extension of his own hands and feet. Up and around, 25-foot takeoff roll, 25-foot ground roll, up and around, showing all the other pilots what it really is to fly and do it well. Sun 'n Fun and the other airshows like it are places we like to come, we want to stay. They encourage us to peer skyward, to plan, to dream. Ya'll come back now, you hear?

Sun 'n Fun '99 Photo Gallery


*"The Prop-man Cometh"*	*"You REALLY think this thing will fly?"*

*"----- is the word."*	*"My, what a large landing light you have."*

*Nose...*	*...to nose.*

*"Twin Peaks"*	*"When I grow up, I want to be a Wilga!"*

*"About 6 gallons per hour... Oh! You mean GAS?"*	*Bob Hoover and fans.*

*"No thanks, I'm stuffed!"*	*Sopwith Camel*

*"Don't worry Maverick, I got him!"*	*No bald jokes here.*

*Balloons rarely get the weather to fly at Sun 'n Fun.*	*Mustang corral.*