kellwolf
Piece of Trash
<warning: This is VERY VERY long>
Some of you guys hear have already heard of the terrors of Sun N Fun experienced by your's truly over the past couple of days. Now that my sunburn is starting to ebb off, here's the full scoop over the past couple of days.
In order to get the full effect of my trials and tribulations of flying into this behemoth, check out the notams. BTW, they get mad at you if you talk on the radio. You acknolwedge instructions by "rocking your wings with gusto."
Started out bright and early Thurs morning at 8:30 AM. Pre-flighted the ole 172SP and took off out of ORL without much fanfare. Got flight following from ORL Approach no problem and proceeded direct to Lake Parker. Only four other planes there, so they cleared us straight through the power plant stacks and onto the approach procedure. Only snag was, we were instructed to "follow the Piper Cub." We had to drop in 10 degrees of flaps to stay slow enough to not chew his tail into shreds. About twenty yards off our 4 o'clock was a Skymaster, gear and flaps down doing S-turns, and right behind him was a Baron. Guess we weren't the only ones hating life. Turned at the strobes and followed the chasers into a left downwind for 27R (which is a TAXIWAY painted like a runway). Tower tells us to keep it airborne until at least halfway down the runway, then set it down. The cub landed in front of us, and the other two landed behind us. Taxiied for a while, parked in the grass, and then it was off to watch the air show.
I was wandering around with my new digital camera snapping pics on the flightline and pimpin' my Jetcareers flyers, when this guys comes up and asks if I want to help with the show. File THAT one under dumb questions, of course! So, I find myself on the glider crew. We basically help the glider pilot and his tow pilot push the glider into position and get set up for his inverted ribbon cut. The main perks here? I watched the airshow from the runway. Nothing like seeing Patty Wagstaff buzz you inverted by 15 feet. Too bad my wife had the camera.....
Departure was pretty uneventful, except for the airport resembled I-4 at rush hour. They were taking off on 9L and 9R at the same time, three at a time. As soon as one person was halfway down the runway, they cleared the next guy to roll. Back into ORL no problems.
Next day was a totally different story. Same situation until we got to Lake Parker. It was insane! There were already 15 planes holding over the lake, so they sent us to Lake Hancock. Did one circuit there, then joined the holding at Lake Parker. There were at LEAST 15 planes there. 100 knoters at 1,200, high-performance at 1,700 and twins at 2,000. There was even a King Air circiling at 2,300. I was following a Commander about 30 feet in front of me, there was a cub (my new favorite</sarcasm>
about 50 feet off my left, and who knows what behind me. I lost count of the RVs and other experimentals, and I got cut off by two different Mooneys. The airport was "saturated," at least that's what they kept telling us. What they should have said was, "Holly @&&$! We didn't think this many people would be here. Now we have to clear more space for them to park!" We circled Lake Parker for 30-45 minutes. Anyone else inbound was sent to hold at Lake Hancock. After a few minutes, even that holding pattern was full. Controllers were telling inbound planes to stay outside of a 3 mi radius and just wait. The Hobbs for this trip was more than my PPL X/C, and Lakeland is only 49 miles from ORL. After an eternity, we got released to fly to procedure, and I got to follow a Bonanza instead of a cub this time. Cleared to land on 9L (the taxiway again) and told to land on the big "1" painted on the ground. The Bonanza landed on the big "2" painted ahead of me. I managed to grease the landing 5 feet short of the "1." Taxiied even FURTHER away (we had to take a BUS to get to the tents, hangars and displays), shut down, and collapsed when I got out of the plane. I was so hyped on adrenaline, and it all gave out as soon as I shut the plane down.
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I'm spoiled now, and I'll probably never drive to Sun N Fun in my car again. When you fly in (unless the airport is saturated, I guess) you get dropped right in the middle of everything without the long walk. One thing that irked me was the number of Sunday Pilots that were out. It was clear most of these guys didn't READ the notam. They looked at the pretty pictures, but didn't read. One guy totally ignored the controller's calls to divert to Lake Hancock and followed I-4 right into the middle of about 5 planes, cutting all of us already holding off. I lost count of near wing clips I saw from people not paying attention. Some guys slowed down to close to 70 knots in the holding pattern, causing a bottleneck and probably some near stalls behind them. Others were using the freq like a CTAF, and I thought the controller was going to come unglued on them.
Probably the most heartstopping, challenging and fun flight I have ever had. Talked to a lot of vendors, got the word out about Jetcareers, took some killer pics, tried out all the headsets I'm debating on, sat in the left seat of an Adams 700 and a Beechjet, got to meet Mike Goulian and Patty Wagstaff, and had a ton of fun. Nice way to spend a couple of days off from work.
Some of you guys hear have already heard of the terrors of Sun N Fun experienced by your's truly over the past couple of days. Now that my sunburn is starting to ebb off, here's the full scoop over the past couple of days.
In order to get the full effect of my trials and tribulations of flying into this behemoth, check out the notams. BTW, they get mad at you if you talk on the radio. You acknolwedge instructions by "rocking your wings with gusto."
Started out bright and early Thurs morning at 8:30 AM. Pre-flighted the ole 172SP and took off out of ORL without much fanfare. Got flight following from ORL Approach no problem and proceeded direct to Lake Parker. Only four other planes there, so they cleared us straight through the power plant stacks and onto the approach procedure. Only snag was, we were instructed to "follow the Piper Cub." We had to drop in 10 degrees of flaps to stay slow enough to not chew his tail into shreds. About twenty yards off our 4 o'clock was a Skymaster, gear and flaps down doing S-turns, and right behind him was a Baron. Guess we weren't the only ones hating life. Turned at the strobes and followed the chasers into a left downwind for 27R (which is a TAXIWAY painted like a runway). Tower tells us to keep it airborne until at least halfway down the runway, then set it down. The cub landed in front of us, and the other two landed behind us. Taxiied for a while, parked in the grass, and then it was off to watch the air show.
I was wandering around with my new digital camera snapping pics on the flightline and pimpin' my Jetcareers flyers, when this guys comes up and asks if I want to help with the show. File THAT one under dumb questions, of course! So, I find myself on the glider crew. We basically help the glider pilot and his tow pilot push the glider into position and get set up for his inverted ribbon cut. The main perks here? I watched the airshow from the runway. Nothing like seeing Patty Wagstaff buzz you inverted by 15 feet. Too bad my wife had the camera.....
Departure was pretty uneventful, except for the airport resembled I-4 at rush hour. They were taking off on 9L and 9R at the same time, three at a time. As soon as one person was halfway down the runway, they cleared the next guy to roll. Back into ORL no problems.
Next day was a totally different story. Same situation until we got to Lake Parker. It was insane! There were already 15 planes holding over the lake, so they sent us to Lake Hancock. Did one circuit there, then joined the holding at Lake Parker. There were at LEAST 15 planes there. 100 knoters at 1,200, high-performance at 1,700 and twins at 2,000. There was even a King Air circiling at 2,300. I was following a Commander about 30 feet in front of me, there was a cub (my new favorite</sarcasm>
about 50 feet off my left, and who knows what behind me. I lost count of the RVs and other experimentals, and I got cut off by two different Mooneys. The airport was "saturated," at least that's what they kept telling us. What they should have said was, "Holly @&&$! We didn't think this many people would be here. Now we have to clear more space for them to park!" We circled Lake Parker for 30-45 minutes. Anyone else inbound was sent to hold at Lake Hancock. After a few minutes, even that holding pattern was full. Controllers were telling inbound planes to stay outside of a 3 mi radius and just wait. The Hobbs for this trip was more than my PPL X/C, and Lakeland is only 49 miles from ORL. After an eternity, we got released to fly to procedure, and I got to follow a Bonanza instead of a cub this time. Cleared to land on 9L (the taxiway again) and told to land on the big "1" painted on the ground. The Bonanza landed on the big "2" painted ahead of me. I managed to grease the landing 5 feet short of the "1." Taxiied even FURTHER away (we had to take a BUS to get to the tents, hangars and displays), shut down, and collapsed when I got out of the plane. I was so hyped on adrenaline, and it all gave out as soon as I shut the plane down.Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I'm spoiled now, and I'll probably never drive to Sun N Fun in my car again. When you fly in (unless the airport is saturated, I guess) you get dropped right in the middle of everything without the long walk. One thing that irked me was the number of Sunday Pilots that were out. It was clear most of these guys didn't READ the notam. They looked at the pretty pictures, but didn't read. One guy totally ignored the controller's calls to divert to Lake Hancock and followed I-4 right into the middle of about 5 planes, cutting all of us already holding off. I lost count of near wing clips I saw from people not paying attention. Some guys slowed down to close to 70 knots in the holding pattern, causing a bottleneck and probably some near stalls behind them. Others were using the freq like a CTAF, and I thought the controller was going to come unglued on them.
Probably the most heartstopping, challenging and fun flight I have ever had. Talked to a lot of vendors, got the word out about Jetcareers, took some killer pics, tried out all the headsets I'm debating on, sat in the left seat of an Adams 700 and a Beechjet, got to meet Mike Goulian and Patty Wagstaff, and had a ton of fun. Nice way to spend a couple of days off from work.
