Escaping the cold
People have been asking me whether I planned on going to Sun & Fun in Lakeland (Florida) for as long as I can remember. I have never attended the fly-in for a number of reasons, but this year, fresh out of excuses, I began planning my trip a couple of days prior to the event. 😁
Weather was to be clear from Florida all the way to Maine (at least on the way down), but I still wanted to file IFR to get a little more practice working within the system with JT.
So, the night before departure I reinstalled the top engine cowl with the freshly fixed oil door, fueled up to max capacity (52 gal), and preflighted the airplane in order to minimize early morning surprises.
Open parentheses...
If you have never filled up a Long EZ before, the procedure is slightly different than what you'd expect. Normally, one would park the plane on its nose then add fuel, except that doing it this way it's only possible to get thirty-some gallons in it. To get the rest of the gas in the tanks, the nose needs to be all the way up, and someone else needs to weigh down the canard while you fill up the tanks. Not a big deal, but help is necessary, and you’d better make sure they understand what their job is, or else you might end up with fuel spilling out of a Long EZ sitting on its non existing tail, looking a lot like the Space Shuttle did at launch time. Not good!
... Close parentheses.
If you have never filled up a Long EZ before, the procedure is slightly different than what you'd expect. Normally, one would park the plane on its nose then add fuel, except that doing it this way it's only possible to get thirty-some gallons in it. To get the rest of the gas in the tanks, the nose needs to be all the way up, and someone else needs to weigh down the canard while you fill up the tanks. Not a big deal, but help is necessary, and you’d better make sure they understand what their job is, or else you might end up with fuel spilling out of a Long EZ sitting on its non existing tail, looking a lot like the Space Shuttle did at launch time. Not good!
... Close parentheses.
I don’t particularly enjoy getting up early, especially on a day off, but even at 170 KTAS Foreflight estimated the one leg to KLAL to be nearly 4 hours long, so in order to make it in before the planned midday airport closure (Blue Angels’ airshow start time), I planned on being airborne by 0730.
With a chilly 45ºF (7ºC), fog had formed right on the runway overnight, but by 0700 it was quickly breaking up.
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| Chesapeake, VA (KCPK) runway fog |
By the time I started up JT, the fog was all but gone.
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| Sun quickly obliterating the fog |
Like AirVenture, Sun & Fun has its own set of NOTAMs covering the fly-in highlighting the Dos and Don'ts, and sticking with their preferred route choices avoided getting rerouted all over Georgia, Florida, or worse... over water.
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| Yeah, the bottle came in handy... twice! 😱 |
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| Running JT at 65% power |
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| Somewhere North of Wilmington, NC. |
Total distance getting there turned out to be 664 NM (764 miles, 1230 Km) long. The planned fuel burn of 32 gal left me with 20 gal usable in the tanks in Lakeland, nearly enough for three more hours, had I needed to hold. However, I was counting on using it a couple days later to get me as far North as possible in search of cheaper fuel on my way home.
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| Looking down on Savannah, GA from 8000'. |
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| What Savannah looks like in the cockpit |
The flight South was completely uneventful, at least until I cancelled IFR. The last five minutes was pretty intense! With everyone aiming for the same initial point, things were guaranteed to get, let’s say… interesting. So much so in fact, that after a less than stabilized approach and landing on a taxiway (as instructed), I completely forgot to show my homemade HB (homebuilt parking) sign. As a result the ground crew didn’t know where to direct me, and I ended up on the wrong side of the airport.
“Doh!”
This however turned out to be a somewhat fortuitous event, as I ended up taxiing right behind the Blue Angels, literally minutes before the start of their airshow.
They did look at me rather intensely as I slowly taxied by, but that’s almost normal flying an EZ anyway, so I waved and some of them waved back. I figured I’d get arrested shortly, but at least I’d have some cool footage to show… right?!
They did look at me rather intensely as I slowly taxied by, but that’s almost normal flying an EZ anyway, so I waved and some of them waved back. I figured I’d get arrested shortly, but at least I’d have some cool footage to show… right?!
Wishing they were me 😂
At last I had to admit of being hopelessly lost, and ended up getting progressive taxiing instruction to the South side of the field, all the while dodging all kinds of military jets. It was kind of fun actually, almost like in the good ol' days.
I was barely parked when new and old friends began dropping by to say hello. Drummer Dan was first to make contact as I struggled to remove multiple layers of what now seemed rather anachronistic clothing. The Florida sunshine with its 80ºF (27ºC) weather demanded swift and less than decorous action on my part, but Dave looked past all the commotion and was gracious enough to present me with a beautiful UK EZ GROUP patch, which I later sewed on my 30 year old helmet bag.
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| That's a pretty cool patch Dan. “Thanks a lot!” |
I wish I had had the presence of mind to take a photo with Dan, but regretfully I missed out on the opportunity.
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| A Long EZ generated friendship that has been enduring since 2010 |
T6s putting up quite a demo!
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| Blue Angels fly-by |
Tight turning F18
Opposing F18s
The show turned out better than I had expected, and when it was over I did get some time to walk around the airport and enjoy more of the sights. I also met more old friends like Terry Schubert and Ary Glantz, and made new ones like Shane Banquer, David Shultz, Chris Perkins, and so many more.
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| Definitely a homebuilt! |
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| Definitely NOT a homebuilt! |
It was like being at AirVenture, but on a more human scale. I really enjoyed it, and I will definitely be back.
Day two was more of the same, but no less enjoyable.
Cool 4 ship fly-by
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| Only way to enjoy an airshow in my opinion 😁 |
Knife edge pass with high G vertical pull up
At the end of day two, I decided to reposition JT closer to the hotel where BizMan and I were staying in Zephyrhills.
Leaving S&F
The six minute straight line flight took BizMan about one hour by car, but however short my flight turned out to be, it was certainly made way more "exciting" by the sudden appearance of a rather big thunderstorm right over the field. I ended up going all the way around it visually, and landing in KZPH from the North side in the wake of its passage.
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| Sometime "as the crow flies" end up looking more like a snake |
Apparently everyone else must have had the same idea because after landing it took me 45 minutes to find a place to tie down, and while the airport was overflowing with airplanes, not a soul could be found to help. I ended up getting stuck in the plane as multiple thunderstorms hit the field over and over again, lightning all over the place. Mercifully, BizMan showed up with his truck and rescued me from this soggy predicament. It sure was good to have him there to help out with the logistics.
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| The Cavalry |
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| Wet overnight parking on the last tie-downs on the field. "Sorry JT!" |
By the time JT was tied down David was already on a final approach, so we waited for him, and we all went out to dinner together.
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| Perhaps due to heat, exhaustion, or adrenaline, that tasted like the best beer I've ever had. |
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| Even BizMan agreed! |
The next morning the whole of Florida was socked in tight, although slowly turning for the better. Around 10 am the weather was finally good enough to get an IFR clearance in and out of Zephyrhills.
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| Low overcast starting to lift |
I think I lucked out with flying JT out of Lakeland the night before, and I was glad I wasn’t trying to get an IFR clearance out of KLAL, as there were probably multitudes of others trying to do the same thing at the same time. What a zoo that must have looked like. Comparatively speaking, getting out of Zephyrhills was a piece of cake.
My game plan was to fly as far north as possible before the thunderstorms hit the Georgia/South Carolina border, and since the further North one went, the lower the IMC became, I decided to stop short of the really low ceilings and land in Fort Stewart/Wright Army Air Field/Midcoast Regional (KLHW), where a bumpy GPS/LPV approach got me down to marginal VFR weather conditions just ahead of the approaching storms.
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| I had been keeping an eye on those two cells' Eastbound progress since taking off |
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| Looking NorthEast toward Savannah |
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| Getting uglier by the minute toward the West |
JT did extremely well, and aside from getting bounced around more than I would have liked, everything worked out as planned. By the time I finished settling JT in for the night, the gusts were becoming pretty strong, and I was more than happy to find shelter in the Terminal building.
Midcoast Regional is a dual use airport (Military/Civilian) right in the middle of a bunch of Military Operation Areas and Restricted Airspace, and for that reason I think a lot of pilots steer away from it unnecessarily. It is actually a GA friendly airport with pretty good fuel prices, and apparently not a lot of traffic. One bonus feature for me is that it is less than 30 minutes from my son’s place, so it was a good opportunity to spend some time with family and relax a bit.
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| We hadn't seen each other in over a year |
Getting up the next morning and looking at the current and forecasted weather, it looked like a scene from the movie Ground Hog Day, with low ceilings and visibilities over the entire East Coast to repeat indefinitely as far out as the predictions would reach. Fortunately, the situation started improving after lunch, and by the time I got to the airport things were looking up. The thunderstorms that were crossing my path North were dissipating and moving East, so I filed IFR around the area, and with a full load of fuel I settled in for the 2.5 hour flight home.
Trip back
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| Planning a route away from the storms |
Enjoying the ride home at 5000'
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| Playing around with the different map modes |
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| A look at cockpit organization |
By the time I got to Chesapeake VMC conditions prevailed, and a nice overhead break was just the icing on the cake this trip needed to be complete.
Come to think of it, this trip was the furthest JT and I have ever gone together, and what a great success it was for the both of us. It has taken me quite some time to design and build JT's instrument platform, and even longer to experiment and become comfortable with its new capabilities, but JT has delivered over and over, proving to be a worthy travel companion.
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| What an awesome machine Terry Lamp has built! |
A few of weeks later with this trip very much in my rearview mirror, I received an envelope in the mail containing an unexpected and very thoughtful present.
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| A mousepad with JT an I leaving Sun & Fun |
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| "Heck yeah!" |
"BizMan, you are the best!"
