We flew for a few hours southeastwards to Florida, but when we reached Tallahassee, it became clear we were not getting through. An entire line of thunderstorms had cut of the state! we ducked into a little airport and the locals let us tie down in an open T-hanger.
We NEEDED to get the Sun'n'Fun so we got a ride into town and rented a car.
We drove 4 hours to get to Lakeland, home of Sun'n'Fun
We arrived on the grounds, the night before my presentation, at 8:01...
...The ticket shack closes at 8:00, and they were very strict, we were not able to get our passes for tomorrow or pay for camping on the grounds.
We ended up pitching our tents in the parking lot. the ticket shack opened at 0800 and we were the first in line, my panel started at 0900! The ticketing staff were very inflexible and because we were driving in rather than flying they tried to charge us for an entire week long wristband and camping totaling almost $400! We were only going to be at the show for 2 days! we took the shuttle to the grounds, and at 0830 were still hunting for the forum tent. when we found it we weren't sure it was the right place. But after asking several staff we found it was in fact the forum building, and began setting up my presentation. It went splendidly, and an hour later it was time to enjoy the show.
The Airshow was great, there was even a British Vampire jet, and my favorite plane: the MiG-17
The next day we drove to Tampa to visit Busch gardens, my dad and I spent all day long riding roller coasters with 5 min wait being the longest we had to stand in line.
After that we drove north to Jekyll Island Georgia for the 2018 Gymnastics Regional Championship.
I Took 2nd Place all around, and had a great competition. And after the meet, there was the beach to enjoy
Saturday we came back to Lakeland for the last day of the show and watched planes fly all day long, ultralights, warbirds, and the rest.
The engine I bought was already built, and had not been run. My dad and I planned to take it all apart to give me a better understanding of the engine, as well as to identify any problems before they got bad. The Arovee engine was heavy and awkward to move. at the time it was sitting on the workbench with everything installed. Going into this I had only enough sense to tell you which cylinder is the #1, 2, 3, and 4, and I knew some of the terminology, such as crackshaft. I frequently asked my dad "what do you call that part?" we began unbolting stuff in roughly reverse order from the manual (if you're familiar with sonex plans, you're used to backwards) In under an hour we had stripped many of the external parts off and the engine had lost at least 20 pounds! A box was designated as the hardware box, so it'll be like legos trying to find the right bolts and nuts again when I reassemble it. the important part is that they're all together and no...
When I flew my plane to OSH23, I saw an artist painting a small depiction of an airplane. She was painting a very small photorealistic scene from a phone image. I could not believe how detailed she was able to make it! She let me watch over he shoulder as she worked. I was so impressed that I commisisoned a similar painting of my sonex. Id like to share that painting with you all. Her name is Rhonda DeGarmo. She has a lot of other work. If you're interested in getting in touch with her please reach out to me and I will pass along her information.
So everyone is kinda freaked out over corona lately. My gymnastics competitions have been canceled, and so have my classes. This has been great for building, I've got all week and maybe more to get some great work in. I have been doing all the last things on the cowling before it's time to prime and paint. The final few things were adding my quarter turn southco fasteners, finishing the air exit cutout, and doing a final sand. (if you can ever even say final and sand in the same sentence) Then it's time to prime. The southco process started by going to southco's website to order an assortment of different sizes. When I completed my order the shipping cost came out to like $40, which was clearly wrong. I was ordering less than 20 studs. It would fit in a flat rate envelope easily. So I scrapped my southco order and went to Aircraft Spruce to order my cheese platter of sizes. The shipping there was much more reasonable and I combined it with some other items I n...
