LAKELAND, FLORIDA

Growing up in Central Florida, living in the state for 27 years, I am not sure how I never made it to Sun n’ Fun in Lakeland. This year, 2017, would be the year - my first experience with Sun ‘n Fun. Instead of making the 100 mile trip from where I grew up, I made the 2,500 mile journey from my current home in Los Angeles. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was excited and knew that I wanted to experience every minute of it. I arrived on Tuesday and planned to stay until the last plane left on Sunday.

Tuesday was a blast seeing all of the planes arriving and finding their way to their parking spot, many of them headed for one of the grass fields to camp for the week. The diversity of the types of aircraft was mind-boggling to me. An old vintage warbird would land, followed by a personal jet and then here comes an F-18 Hornet and an A-10 Warthog. It was really something special. Having attended many shows in the past, including every year of Miramar since 2007, this was different. There was a different feel in the air with so many fellow aviation enthusiasts. Most air shows, especially free ones, such as Miramar brings out all types of people. While I love this because it exposes so many people that may not be familiar with aviation to its awesomeness, there is something incredible about being surrounded by 200,000 people (many of them pilots and one astronaut) that LOVE everything aerospace.

I became familiar with the grounds as there was a lot of real estate to cover. I had been planning my agenda in the weeks leading up to Sun ‘n Fun using the iPhone app. It was great because it allowed me to look through the schedule of events and select the ones that I was interested in attending. It also sent me a reminder of each event and provided me with a map of where to go (life-saving). It was time to attend my first of almost 400 forums/workshops that occurred during the week. I sat in on a talk about getting a seaplane rating.

It was time to head out to the flight line to see the French demonstration team prepare for the aerial demonstrations since this was the only day that they would be in town. Even sitting on the tarmac, their 10-ship formation looked spectacular. They taxied to the runway as the Para-Commandos from the SOCOM Parachute Team made their jump to start day one of the flying portion of the show carrying both a French flag and an American flag. I spent the rest of the day watching everything from a B-25 named “Panchito” to a Canadair CT-133 named “The Ace Maker II” dance through the sky. Day one was in the books and I was stoked for the rest of the week.