Ever hear the one about the week-long aviation celebration that enjoyedperfect weather and safety from the first early-bird arrival to the finalflyer's flight home? Probably not, because they just don't happen - or, at theleast, don't happen often.

And so it was with the final flights of Sun 'n Fun 2000, which fulfilled itsveterans' expectations in the end, the one that observes, "It justwouldn't be a (fill in event name here) if it didn't rain once during thefly-in/air show/convention/etc." After Thursday dawned damp and foggy,clear skies greeted the annual Seaplane Splash at Lake Parker - but only untilthe sky thickened with clouds and muted the evening's twilight swarm ofultralights. In the end, even the powered-parachute pilots got a little finalcooperation with Mother Nature, who held back her tears until the early hours ofFriday.

An overnight deluge brightened the souls of drought-plagued Floridians amongthe volunteer corps and audience, as well as bringing sighs of relief tofirefighters battling a 15,000-acre brush blaze elsewhere in the state. But thepayback was a premature deflation of the buoyancy that came with the clearskies, cool temperatures and uncharacteristic dryness that accompanied Sun 'n Fun'sfirst four days.

And even Saturday got in its weather shots, with thick fog blanketing thefield until midday - lifting just in time for the final airshow of the year. Soin the end, Sun 'n Fun lived up to both its name and its history: Mostly sunnywith some rain.

Unfortunately, one of the other truisms of events this large is the expectedcrunch of at least one flying machine, and that, too, came true Thursday eveningwhen gyrocopter pilot Ira Farrington didn't walk away from a hard landing inChopper Town, Sun 'n Fun's center for the rotorcraft-centric. A co-owner of thecompany that makes the Air & Space Gyro in Covington, Ky., 70-year-oldFarrington is a former Pan Am 747 captain. He was upgraded to serious-but-stablecondition Friday evening and a medical - versus mechanical - problem was beingattributed as the cause of the crash.

In better condition was Sergei Boriak, who was practicing for the airshow inhis aerobatic Velox Revolution 2 when part of the elevator linkage failed andthe Extra 300-like design fell to earth three miles east of South LakelandAirpark (X31) - thanks to something you just don't hear about every day: A successful application for membership in the Caterpillar Club by a civilianpreviously piloting a civilian airplane. Boriak, a former paratrooper, bailed from the airplane when the linkagefailed during an inverted maneuver, suffering only a twisted knee,according to friends. The airplane, however, was destroyed with wreckagescattered in and among a stand of trees.

Despite the rain and pain, however, attendance at the fly-in was runningclose to a new record, according to Sun 'n Fun president Bill Eickhoff incomments he made to Friday night's raucous crowd at the annual ultralight party.John Burton, executive director of Sun 'n Fun, pegged attendance at slightlyahead of 1999's 684,000. "Whether we ultimately exceed last year depends ontoday's crowd," he told AVweb's Dave Higdon Saturday morning. Final numbers won't,however, be available for several days, he added.

In the end, it was hard not to consider Sun 'n Fun 2000 a complete success.The sun emerged Saturday early enough for the fly-by of a B-2 Stealth bomber andthe final airshow of the event. Fliers flew in and out, folks had fun, vendorsworked their credit card machines to the edge of the envelope sellingairplanes and avionics and engines and props, seats and belts, canopies andcupholders. All found ample audiences. And though not a perfect record safety-wise, Sun 'n Fun 2000 again demonstrated that general aviation pilots can makean airport the world's busiest for a week and handle the heat with the best ofthem.

And, now, Lakeland Linder Regional Airport goes back into relative hibernationuntil the volunteers awaken the field to prepare for the 27th annual Sun 'n Funnext April. See you there!

Of course, no major event like Sun 'n Fun is completewithout several manufacturers saving up their latest and greatest developmentsfor announcement at the event, and this year was no exception. While there wereno new production aircraft announced, all major factories were on hand and theyall had good news about increased deliveries, new avionics packages, changes toproduction schedules and the like. AVweb covered many of the latestdevelopments among makers of certified aircraft in Part Oneof our SnF 2000 coverage. Here's a few more.

General aviation could soon have a second two-place trainer approved forflight and instruction in the fine art of instrument flying when HGL Aerocompletes IFR certification of the composite Eagle 150B profiled last month hereon AVweb. According to HGL executive Justin Ladner, work on IFR approvalis proceeding as a top priority for the Augusta, Kan., company, with an eyetoward FAA certification in the second half of the year. Currently, only AMD's CH2000, a sheet-metal design, is IFR-approved among thethree-way market for two-seat trainers, while neither the Eagle 150B nor theDiamond DA20 Katana - both composite designs - are IFR-approved.

There's no rest for the wicked, the old folks used to say and, apparently,little for the good and hard-working, if Diamond Aircraft's plans for itsDA40-180prototype are any indication. With more than 1,100 hours and in excess of 16,000landings already logged, the Diamond Star left Sun 'n Fun over the weekend boundfor a demonstration tour that will basically loop the continental U.S. and sweepthe center of the nation in a quest to develop a dealer network for both thefour-place Star and two-place Katana.

According to company executives, the ideal candidate will be an FBO or flightschool capable of keeping a demonstrator of each model on the ramp, and of offeringflight instruction, as well as maintenance and customer support. The development of adealer network marks a departure for the London, Ontario company, whichhistorically has sold its airplanes directly to the customer. The development tour also meanspilots all across the continent will have an opportunity to glimpse thehard-working airplane in person. Meanwhile, development of the DA40-180 continues, with full certificationexpected around the end of the year.

While many considered it quiet on the airframe front, thesame could not be said for avionics and other segments of the industry. Here's afew of the highlights.

Afterwhat to many appeared to be a few months of relative inactivity in the new-product arena while AlliedSignal's acquisition of Honeywell and its name changewere implemented, the company has come strutting back into the avionics fray asif it never left. And, in fact, it hasn't. Last week at Sun 'n Fun, Honeywelldebuted several avionics boxes for the panel-mount set and told of its plans fornew services designed to bring the benefits of real-time weather and trafficinformation - currently reserved mostly for the heavy-iron drivers - down tothe cockpits of more mundane aircraft.

Among them is thebudget-minded IHAS 1000, which extends to more pilots the option ofadding a graphical integrated hazard-awareness system to their aircraft. The IHAS 1000, a sibling to the company's higher-end IHAS 5000 and 8000 systems, uses an enhanced version of the KMD 150 flat-panel multifunction display - a box available with or without its own integrated GPS engine - as its cockpit interface. The KMD 150 uses a database to display a moving map of aeronautical and cartographic information. When connected to the forthcoming KDR 110 datalink transceiver, the unit will also use information delivered via Bendix/King's Wingman Services, a soon-to-be-available series of services offering everything from real-time weather to two-way messaging and more, all displayed in your cockpit. When coupled with the KT-73 datalink transponder - available soon - the MFD 150 will also show transponder-equipped aircraft within 1,200 feet and five nautical miles, values that will increase to 4,000 feet and seven miles by 2001. The KMD 150 also can accommodate input from a BFGoodrich WX-500Stormscope sensor.

Bendix/King's WingMan Services looks like an exciting new tool to help us maximize all these new toys we'll be installing in our panels in the next few years. The service is actually a package of four different levels of information and communication capabilities - standard, expanded, premium and commercial - ranging from all the free services the FAA requires of flight information service (FIS) vendors to everything from liveNexrad weather radar, medical assistance, email messaging and even help withhotel and rental car needs for pilots en route. The ground-based WingMan Services uses the VHF radio spectrum to transmit data at 31.5 kilobytes a second, faster than many current satellite-based systems. According to company executives,prices for the value-added Wingman services will significantly undercut similarservices available today.

The company is positioning its new hardware and services packages as being in partnership with general aviation operators - a partnership similar to those offered by carmakers like Cadillac, with its OnStar communications and monitoring system - and has established a 200-person "Global Data Center" to handle the workload. And this is just the beginning: Company executives tell AVweb that this package of integrated hardware and software answers to the question of when the "gee-whiz" datalink stuff will trickle down to the light end of GA will grow by this summer's EAA AirVenture 2000. AVweb is definitely looking forward to these and other developments in this market.

Whilethe staff at Honeywell/Bendix-King have been toiling away on new toys, those atGarmin have been focused on getting their two latest offerings - the colorGPSMAP 295 and the GNS 530 - out the door to eager customers. Garmin'sexecutives tell AVweb that the 295 is flying out the door, and if theaction at SnF vendor booths is any indication, they're telling the truth. At thesame time, the long-awaited GNS-530 - a panel-mounted all-in-one moving mapunit including GPS, VOR/LOC/ILS and communications capabilities - will startshipping almost any day. And of course, the GNS 430 - the original, smallerversion of the GNS 530 - continues to sell well, as evidenced by the hugenumber of recent-manufacture NAV/COMMs currently appearing on the used marketand the "take-a-number" nature of scheduling some downtime in yourlocal avionics shop.

But the GNS 530 drew the most attention at Garmin's SnF booth, and with good reason. While many wondered how to improve on the GNS 430, the answer was really quite simple: a larger screen. And the 530 has it - a five-inch-diagonal color display integrating communications and navigation management information, graphical display of navigation aids and data, plus the output from other manufacturers' lightning detection and traffic awareness systems. Both the GPSMAP 295 and the GNS 530 include a complete and updateable Jeppesen database.

In fact, Garmin's philosophy of all-in-one boxes contrasts sharply with the ideas behind other manufacturers, including Honeywell/Bendix-King, who are focused on multiple avionics products that are tightly integrated with each other to share and present information in new ways while allowing incremental installation and upgrades. Each philosophy has its strengths and weaknesses: On one hand, buying and installing a single box can be more cost-effective and take up much less of the scarce panel space available. On the other hand, the multiple-unit approach can add redundancy, allow greater flexibility and spread out over time the purchase/installation costs while allowing owners to take advantage of the sometimes-minute differences in available products. No matter which you choose - and the one thing AVweb is sure of is that, sooner or later you will choose - it'll be hard to go wrong.

Yes, folks, the race toward a single-power-lever flight deck is heating up,and there is yet no clear winner in sight. But Lancair confirmed plans to offerTeledyne Continental's does-it-all FADEC system as an option on the Columbia 300and the just-announced Columbia Turbo 400, as the folks in Mobile complete development of the systems forconstant-speed-propeller-driven and turbocharged airplanes.

Meanwhile, the gang from Unison Industries were touting the successes to dateof that company's EPIC system, which builds on the LASAR digital electronicignition system to control throttle, prop and mixture through a single knob inthe cockpit. Flight tests began in January and have progressed to the point thatthe system could be available to the aftermarket by late July, just in time forbuyers arriving at another major fly-in on the annual circuit.

While one pilot used his parachute the way many believe it should only beused - to quickly and safely exit from a suddenly-not-so-perfectly-good airplane- scores ofothers used theirs more as Leonardo DaVinci once imagined: To sail the skies intouch with the world. We're talking about powered parachutes, aswell as powered paragliders, arguably the most-popular spectator and aviatorattraction in Sun 'n Fun's Paradise City, the area reserved and preserved forultraligt vendors, operators and wannabes. Names like Six Chuter, Paraborne, Powrachute, Buckeye and others filled thesky around the Paradise City grass strip at every opportunity afforded byultralight chairman Dave Piper's volunteer staff, and every time the"conventional" ultralights came down, the frameless foils took over,drawing crowds away from practically every other attraction in the area.

The appeal is easy to see. Compact to store, relatively inexpensive toown and maintain, and stone-simple to fly, powered parachutes and paragliders -soaring canopies with back-pack engines strapped to the pilot - demand littletechnical skill to master. Set them up, spread out the chute, and power up. Fullpower starts them climbing, less power converts climb to cruise, idle brings ona descent - all generally at the same airspeed. For flying novices, little morethan sound judgment is required; for experienced pilots, there's little demandon their thinking. And it's all wrapped up in the same bugs-in-your-teeth, wind-in-your-faceappeal that draws licensed pilots to ultralights in general. Historically, 60percent of all ultralight owners also have - or had - a pilot certificate before"converting." With even more designs emerging from the fixed-frameside of ultralight flying, there's still plenty of room for everybody -regardless of your airframe aspirations.

Multifaceted actor Orson Wells once became a comic's dream by intoning in awine commercial, "We will sell no wine ... before its time." Rans Inc.President Randy Schlitter has long held the same philosophy for the kitplanesand ultralights that come out of his factory in Hays, Kan., and that's why it'staken years to finally see the time come for his S-17 Stinger. A FAR 103-legalultralight - 254 pounds, five gallons of fuel, one seat, 55 knots max levelspeed - the Stinger sports a blend of welded 4130 steel for the"cabin" area, a Dacron-covered parasol wing, aluminum tube-boom fuselage, tailwheelgear and a pusher engine configuration. And all this comes at prices that range from under $10,000 - withoutan engine or prop - to between $10,500 and $11,500, depending on the Rotaxpowerplant and propeller selection. Now all this may sound maddeninglyunconventional to some aviators, but where flying is concerned, nothing could befurther from the truth.

Schlitter gave the Stinger a conventional three-axis, stick-and-rudder controlsystem and functional multi-position flaps, as well as tundra tires and realbrakes, to save flyers wear and tear on their tennis shoes. In fact, two earlierincarnations of the Stinger shared all of these traits, while they varied inengine configuration and construction materials. But there was no way Schlitterwould put his stamp on any incarnation until it met his demands for handling andsafety. Now, the die is cast and the Stingers should be buzzing out of thefactory at those prices.

The future of general aviation has always been somewhat of a hand-wringing exercise among many pilots and aircraft owners. For some time now, it has taken a huge leap of faith to envision that the advances in powerplants, systems and structures observed in the automobile industry, in experimental aviation and on our workplace desktops will ever trickle down to production, owner-flown aircraft. This is especially true when 40-year-old airplanes have the same basic airframe and engine designs as those rolling off the assembly lines today. On one hand, the development costs are huge. The certification costs are even greater. Finally, who will buy and fly these expensive-to-develop machines? Where will the standardization come from to ensure that training, operation and equipment can be measurably improved? Who is going to take on these challenges?

AVweb has taken a detailed glimpse into the future of general aviation as a result of Sun 'n Fun 2000 and come away convinced more than ever that the future of both our aircraft and our pilots is bright, safer, more efficient, more open-minded and more articulate than ever before. These glimpses come as the result of Executive Editor Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside's detailed conversations with NASA program management involved with their high-tech AGATE and SATS programs and with representatives from EAA's Vision of Eagles program. Both stories bring with them a compelling tale of what could be, but by no means the only outcome for the future of GA. Read on.

NASA is relatively well-known throughout civil aviation as playing a supporting role in the preservation of safety through its Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS). The ASRS collects, analyzes, and responds to voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident reports in order to lessen the likelihood of aviation accidents. In an agreement worked out with the FAA beginning in 1975, submitting an ASRS report can provide a degree of immunity to the submitter in the case of a violation. In addition to the ASRS program, NASA's research can be found in a variety of aerodynamic improvements to aircraft large and small. Increasingly, the agency is focusing on doing technology development projects for the transportation industry. In layman's terms, this means high-risk pre-product development, or the kind of high-risk research that manufacturers rarely have the gumption or budget to take on.

Two programs underway within NASA - dubbed AGATE and SATS - hold great promise for the future of general aviation, both as we know it and as we, perhaps, would like it to be. These programs have been ongoing within NASA for a few years. Due to budget constraints, however, neither one has really reached the critical mass their supporters have hoped for and, some would say, have become some of the agency's best-kept secrets. Possibly for the same budgetary reasons, NASA has not exactly promoted them, either. All that may change next year if the boys and girls at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget consent to allow a larger share of the federal pie for them.

The AGATE program, which stands for Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments, is designed to revitalize the existing market for general aviation aircraft and has as its target the $150,000 single-engine, four-place owner-flown airplane. NASA officials point to the Lancair Columbia 300, with its high-tech instrument panel and LCD bringing the computer revolution of the past couple of decades to GA, as the proof-of-concept for certain elements of AGATE. Indeed, another way to think of the AGATE program is that it seeks to migrate developments in the personal computer industry from the desktop - or laptop - into your instrument panel.

But AGATE is just the beginning. Enter SATS, the Small Aircraft Transportation System. SATS is designed to pick up where AGATE leaves off - instead of the $150,000 airplane, think of the $75,000 airborne transportation system, integrating advances in technologies beyond just computers, to develop a craft that uses high levels of automation to simplify its operation while greatly improving its efficiency and utility. Eventually using technologies like infrared, radar and GPS - all integrated into a synthetic vision application to aid in navigation and severe weather avoidance - SATS program managers look for it to result in a "Highway In The Sky" (complete with the unfortunate acronym HITS) type of point-to-point navigation.

If this sounds like the something straight out of the "Jetsons" television program, you're to be forgiven. This evolutionary program - not revolutionary - is designed to help simplify aviation, making it affordable, dependable and safer by developing and implementing a type of "cruise control" for aircraft, eventually to include even an autolad capability. Yes, it sounds like a pipe dream, yet NASA's people are determined to make as much of it happen as possible. The bottom line is that some of the stuff NASA is working on today could well end up in your Bonanza in ten years or so. Doubt that? Well, remember that the recently-announced Eclipse Aviation Corp. Eclipse 500 twin-jet is built around SATS technology. This stuf could well be here sooner.

Look for more coverage of NASA's AGATE and SATS program on AVweb in the coming months.

But who will be flying the aircraft of the future, whetheror not they are built around the technologies on which NASA is working? Wherewill we find the next generation of pilots and aviation buffs? One answer is nofurther than your local EAA Chapter and its implementation of the Vision ofEagles program. AVweb also had the opportunity to meet with EAAmanagement at SnF to discuss this program and meet with recently-named Vision ofEagles spokesperson Jamail Larkins.

EAA's Vision of Eagles program essentially picks up where the Young Eagles program - the latter designed mainly to acquaint youngsters with general aviation by giving them rides - leaves off. And it's a good thing, too. Simply connecting local EAA member pilots with youngsters who may want to learn more about flying and dropping the issue right there is not the way to go about trying to get more people involved in aviation for the long-term. Instead, there has to be follow-up and a concerted outreach program that is also designed to include kids who weren't fortunate enough to become a Young Eagle but who nonetheless represent a pool of untapped resources for the future. Indeed, the polling that EAA has done so far with its Young Eagle members indicates that a whopping 84% say their flight made them want to learn more about aviation, 82% say school would be more interesting if teachers aviation with their subjects. Finally, fully 88% of educators say that students would react positively to aviation-based criteria. What's an industry group to do with those kind of numbers? Try to take advantage of them, of course.

And that's where the Vision of Eagles program comes in. The association bills it as a "unique series of initiatives to educate, motivate and provide direction to young people through the excitement of aviation." By employing a three-tiered game plan - field programs like airplane rides; academic programs designed to apply abstract concepts in science and math; and residence programs through the Oshkosh, Wis.,-based Air Academy - EAA hopes to build on this foundation.

Of course, what's a good program without a spokesperson, preferably one who is of the targeted age group, got his or her start in the Young Eagles and is articulate. Enter Jamail Larkins, a 16-year-old from Augusta, Ga., who is just what the doctor ordered.

You may remember Jamail from previous AVweb news coverage - he's the youngster who soloed a Cirrus SR-20 the day after his 16th birthday. So far, he has 278 hours total time, having flown some 34 aircraft. He's presently taking aerobatic training in an Extra 300 L from Clint McHenry, with plans to one day be on the airshow circuit. He's also a straight-A student and president and CEO of his own company. At 16.

His answer to the question of what is his greatest challenge as the program's spokesperson? "Make it more successful." Right, but how to do that and what's the best way to reach youngsters? Simple: "Let them experience aviation." What about parents? Jamail admits that his parents were skeptical at first. But when they were shown the safety statistics and became involved with their son, they soon got infected with the aviation bug as well. The rest, to paraphrase, is history in the making.

If Jamail is any indication of where the next generation of GA-minded pilots will be coming from, then we have little to fear. Similarly, if NASA can come through with even a small portion of its plans for improving the "GA aircraft as we know it," then aviation will become more accessible, more efficient, safer and a better transportation value than ever before. Just be careful if you're considering a career in aviation. There are a growing number of youngsters like Jamail out there. Competition is good, don't you think?

When it's all said and done, it was a pretty good week, both for SnF organizers and participants, but also for attendees. They saw some of the best that general aviation has to offer, from production aircraft to warbirds and antiques, to ultralights and experimentals. In the end, although the weather and two mishaps combined to dampen enthusiasms for a day or so, the event ended as it began - on a high note.

As AVweb's Special Report on Sun 'n Fun 2000 comes to a close, don't forget either Part One of our news coverage or our exclusive collection of images from the event, Parts One, Two and Three. AVweb will also be working to bring you the latest and greatest from other events around the country later this year, including - once again - daily coverage of EAA AirVenture 2000, direct from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.