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We Had a Great Trip to Sun N Fun in Florida

Danny Anderson and I flew the plane to Fernandina Beach (KFHB) on Monday morning. The plan was to make the short flight over to Lakeland early on Tuesday morning and “beat the traffic” to the air show. I thought if we got to the Lakeland area by 0800, the number of airplanes trying to get into KLAL would be at a minimum. Boy was I wrong.

As we began the arrival procedure, we noted 25 other aircraft all trying to converge on the same spot (F08) at the same time. That’s us in the middle of the conga line.

The good news is that we only had to stay in the hold for one trip and then we proceeded inbound. We were behind an old Cessna 170 so I got to practice slow flight for about five miles.

We got the airplane tied down, unloaded the gear and got our tents set up. Then it was off to the show. There is too much to say about all the airplanes we looked at and all the stuff vendors had for sale. A few highlights of the next two days:

  • The Air Force F-22 demonstration
  • Talking to the YOUNG pilots that fly NOAA’s P-3 Hurricane Hunter (nicknamed Miss Piggy)
  • Walking inside NASA’s Supper Guppy (not sure how the thing even flies)
  • The Kincer Chassis stuff ($$$ vintage truck restores)
  • The Redbull aerobatic helicopter demonstration
  • The evening air show on Wednesday
  • The peach cobbler at The Peach House in Lakeland

Note: The Thunderbirds likely would have been on this list, but we only saw them fly their calibration flights. They fly their show on Friday and Saturday.

I entered my airplane to be judged for an award at SnF. I won’t know how it did until Saturday. I personally think it looked great, but the judging is a bit of a crap shoot and they give you very little info on exactly what they are looking for. Stay tuned.

Some more pictures:

We departed bright and early on Thursday morning for the trip home. The weather was gorgeous (as it was for the entire show). We had a nice tail wind so the whole trip was less than four hours.

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It’s Back from Evoke and It Looks Awesome

Danny Anderson and I flew down to Atlanta on a commercial flight last night. This morning my friend Ed drove us from ATL to Gadsden. We checked over the plane and took a bunch of pictures. Danny and I loaded up and started the engine (it started on about one revolution of the propeller even after six months of sitting idle). We departed for KFCI — A bit over three hours of flight time. The flight was VFR and uneventful except for a brief but violent bit of turbulence over North Carolina. I managed a pretty decent landing even after six months away from the airplane.

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A Bit Delayed, but Real Progress

The Evoke team says they should be done by about March 20th. I had hoped they would be done around the first of the month. I know it will be worth waiting for. Here are some pictures taken today (February 26th).

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I Wanted a Way to Check the Tire Pressure Without Taking the Wheel Pants Off

Like all airplanes, the RV-10 tires will lose a little bit of air pressure over time. It’s easy to let the tires get soft because it is a bit of a pain in the ass to remove the wheel pants just to check the tire pressure.

I asked Evoke to modify the wheel pants to include a small access door to make checking the pressure and adding air easier. I had seen some that had a small hole with a plug in it, but I like the solution that the Evoke fiberglass guys came up with better.

Here is a picture.

It will of course look better when they are painted.

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Getting Closer

These pictures were taken by Autumn Baugh from Evoke on February 5th. The airplane has the base coat on it. Striping, paint, and clear coat will be starting soon. Hope to be done around March 1st.