Sun 'N Fun 2001

Our First Air show with our ship

Great show but a major disappointment for us.

We busted our arses to get the ship finished and then the trailer. Right up until the night before we left we were buzzing like bees to get everything done. Thursday morning I left for Sun 'N Fun the 2nd biggest air show in the world. Nervous, Na, just relieved to know we were finally ready to go and got it all accomplished on time.

We arrived at the Lakeland airport about 10pm that night after one really super long wild ride there towing our 69 foot long rig down the highway. Chopper town was locked up tight for the night so we stayed in a parking lot on the south side of the airport for the night and rolled into Chopper Town early Friday morning. Bill Meyer the grand Pooba of Chopper Town told us where to set up and where to park the trailer. After we got all set up we went and met the rest of the gang, Bobbie Meyer, Sue and Barry, John and a few others that volunteer and help set up and run Chopper Town.

So here we are ready and chomping at the bit lol, what should we do with our heli I asked, that's when I got some news I didn't want to hear. Even though our helicopter was finished, certified and ready to rock n roll it was out of its assigned test area and couldn't be flown at Sun N Fun.  All we could do was put our ship on static display and enjoy the show so that's just what we did.

A couple of days later we got some more bad news we didn't know about that had never crossed our minds.
if you couldn't fly it here you weren't allowed to be a contestant in the airshow.
<Sigh>
What a let down, all that work and all that scrambling for nothing.

 
Another bad thing was we couldn't fly it over to the trailer to put our ship away at night. It had to sit out in the good ole Florida salt water dew. The first night we tried to put it under cover under the awning of our RV but it just wasn't big enough to cover it. There it set out there with all it's polished aluminum and exposed steel exposed to the weather. It was like leaving your baby outside in the front yard for the night. The next morning I went and looked it over and sure enough the tail rotor shaft, the flywheel and a couple of other parts were already showing signs of rust
<kicking pebbles>
Oh well we're here well fix it later.

Later on after the show got going something good did happen, well it wasn't good but the outcome of it was lol.  John Spurling's ship had a crank sensor go bad. My ship was grounded anyway so we robed one from it until he could get a replacement. Tom smith was flying in from Phoenix the next day and was kind enough to bring it along with him. Tom brought it down to Chopper Town and we put the new part in my ship.

Donna and I and two of our friends Rick and Robin
volunteered to help and got the honor of filling in a 1/4 mile long trench the other volunteers dug for a water line all the way to the other side of the airfield. It wasn't fun but it was worth it to get to camp right in Chopper Town with the rest of our friends. Of course John Spurling, John Pohlman and a bunch of others cheered as we sweated our A--* off in the hot Florida sun lol. You'd never think sand was such a hard dirt but let us tell ya it is lol.

This is a shot of my buddy Rick
and some other folks exiting the R44 Bill Meyers was giving rides in.

I and a few friends almost got killed one day. I was standing next to our RV shooting the bull with someone and out of the corner of my eye I saw something go wizzing by my head. The thing we called Inspector Gadget crashed and ejected pieces of the rotor blades all the way to where we were camping, about 75 yards away. The whole thing was not good because our helicopter was between it and us and how it went unscathed I'll never understand.

I got to witness the Jag Helicopter prototype
If it ever gets off the ground it's going to be awesome.

Thanks! Bill and especially Bobby Meyers, for taking great care of us.

We had a great time and if we can pull it off, well be back next year for hopefully even a longer stay.