Sun N Fun 2011

I flew down to Sun N Fun at Lakeland, FL this week to help man the ForeFlight booth and take in the sights.

The trip down there was easier than I expected. I briefed the VFR arrival procedures numerous times, but when I finally got there it was light IFR. That meant they were just bringing us in on the GPS 9 approach which made things very simple.

The line crew gave me a good parking spot on 4 inches of soil over an old runway and, after a good walk across the airport, I was soon helping out in the booth.

With the threat of high winds Thursday we went out to the airplane again to see what we could do to further secure it. Turns out there was a PilotMall retail shop on field and they had "the Claw". A set cost ~$85 so we got one and headed out to the airplane. We hitched a ride from some friends that had a golf cart so that saved us from some of the hike. After installing the claw (leaving my other tie downs in place as well) we went back to work in the booth.

A few hours later, the claw was put to the test. We were in Hangar E when a tornado came through the area. There is some debate as to whether the tornado was actually on the airport, but the noise of the weather was intense.

The security guards closed up the hangar doors and people were getting really nervous. The sound of the storm was such that you could barely talk, and some folks were yelling at the other end of the hangar. I had thought they were watching a tornado go through, but after hearing more I now think they were concerned about one of the hangar doors blowing in.

We lost power for the remainder of the day, but since we had a sort-of-working internet connection on our Verizon iPads we were showing folks the latest radar returns.

We ended up closing the show a few hours early that day. Most vendors had left once it was obvious that the power wouldn't come back on soon, and most of the attendees had left when the rains let up enough. So around 3pm we left the booth and headed out to the airplane.

From the reports I'd heard in the booth, I was convinced that every airplane at the show had been destroyed. Thankfully that turned out to be a gross over-estimate.

We found the airplane to be in really good shape. In fact, it had only moved a small amount trying to weathervane into the wind. The Claw did its job well - it's now the only portable tie downs for me.

You can see by the cones the direction of the storm in this area. We did see a few airplanes that were flipped and a few others that had slid into a new parking spot, but the destruction was much less than initially reported, thankfully. We checked the plane closely to look for "shrapnel" damage or any other issues, but somehow our bird was unscathed.

Yesterday I went to the Colombia FBO to pay for the fuel I had called in. Apparently I was supposed to either give them credit card info over the phone or have waited at the airplane for them to arrive. Since I didn't know that, they didn't fuel me up.

However, they took great care of me and had the plane topped off before I even got over to it. They gave me a van ride 90% of the way to the plane and then I walked the last bit of taxiway since they weren't sure the van was allowed in that area.

I did a thorough preflight and blasted off to return home. Except for encountering some good turbulence in the descent and in the traffic pattern the flight was perfect. I had to file my IFR flight plan as if I was leaving from X61 instead of KLAL. Once I got near X61 Orlando Approach let me get a clearance and finish up the flight IFR.