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Sun 'N Fun's
2006
Fly-In
About all we can say is once again
It Rocked!
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On the trip down we stopped at a Sam's Wholesale Club and stayed the night.
Someone,
in what we assume was an 18 wheeler, ran over this rock and dragged
it some 40 or 50 feet until it got free from it. I'd sure like
to be a fly on the wall when the person is explaining it to his or
her boss lol. What gives this rock merit is that when they
moved it sometime during the night they put it in a place that
blocked our path out but we managed to get around it lol.
We arrived
at ChopperTown
on Saturday
afternoon and hadn't even shut the engine off on the bus yet when we
had to go help assist in putting that archway up you see in the picture.
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The Control Tower
which is
actually the heart of Chopper Town. It contains everything
equipment wise that we use on the grounds from the signs that direct
people to the electronics used to guide the incoming and out going
rotorcraft air traffic during the airshow.
The Pilot Tent
This tent like most everything else in Chopper Town serves several purposes during the show. Every morning at 9:00 am pilots have to come to a pilots briefing where they are kept up to date on all the ups and downs of flying here. If you miss one of these meetings your not allowed to fly here until the next day and there's a very good reason for that rule as things evolve here by the minute.
The Registration Tent
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The Command Bus
This is also a multi purpose vessel. It's where sereral meetings are held and also serves as our motorpool for the ATV's and Golf carts we use. We also get our drinks ice and food from here each day.
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Bobbie |
Donna |
Donna |
Jack |
Charmienne & Jack |
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Bill Myers |
Jack |
Our ship along side one of the Safaris out on the flight line.
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The Pro Drive Booth in Chopper Town
which as usual has no competition on the grounds like every year. Perhaps their competitors in the great white north are afraid they might melt in sunny Florida lol. All kidding aside It's very odd that with all the pissing contests that have went on over the secondary shaft issue that none of the other venders come to the 2nd biggest air show in the world to sport their products. It rates right up there with Rotorway not flying one of their factory ships at the show.
Go Figure!!
John Spurling was a pretty busy guy during the show answering questions for people.
Some of the Crew of Safari Helicopter Company
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The Wasp
The Mosquito
These little helicopters drew alot of attention and from what I could see looked like they had it going on.
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The Butter Fly Gyros
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The only helicopter on the static line
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The Paco Express
This belongs to one of the Volunteers that work Choppertown every year
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This is a
ship that belongs to a customer of John Spurling's that is for sale
which won
Sun 'N Fun's Best Helicopter Award this year.
Shots of the safety wiring on the tail rotor assembly.
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Purty! |
Kewl Window! |
Super nice seats |
I forgot lol |
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Shots of the end caps in the main rotor blades which don't appear to be glued in place.
The Hummingbird Booth in Chopper Town
You wouldn't know it from the picture but finding room to stand in this tent during most of the show was quite an accomplishment. They kept pretty busy thought out the time we were there either chatting with folks or giving them rides in there helicopter which from what I gather flies like a dream.
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This was some kind of a flight school tent.
These folks were a constant baby sitting job during the show. From what I get out of it they were selling introductory training time in an R22 to get people interested in learning to fly helicopters but giving flight instruction during the air show was a major NO! NO!. What it boiled down to is we all had to keep a constant eye on them during the show which created a safety issue we didn't need going on.
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This is what they call the ride hopper at Chopper Town
This guy does quite a bit more than give folks rides at a reasonable price during the show. Nigel serves as our spotter while he's out there flying around notifying the control tower of incoming traffic that hasn't contacted the tower. During the air show the airport is under a special NOTAM, you wouldn't believe how many pilots that come in here haven't a clue of what they are doing.
Another kewl thing Nigel does is every time he has an empty seat he takes one or more of the cadets from England along for the ride. These young folks really bust there butts working during the show and he makes sure everyone of them gets at least one ride. Nigel's helicopter also serves as the primary training ship for the cadets who using hand signals guide the ship from take off to landing each time it flys.
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iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Happy 29th
Birthday Charleen
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These
pictures were from a two fold event,
Our Volunteer
banquet and as long as we were at it Charleen's Birthday celebration.
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We snuck out one day during the time Chopper Town was shut down for the daily airshows to checkout my dad's new bus. Unfortunately like a dummy this is all the pictures I took while I was there.
It's a beauty
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The Night Airshow
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The highlight of my trip this year
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I got to go with Andrew and Bill on a 140 mile (there and back) cross country flight to a place called Crystal River in Bill Meyer's Robinson R44 Helicopter. Andrew flew it to Crystal River and on the return leg Bill let me have a shot at flying it most of the way back to Lakeland. Air traffic wasn't near as bad as I figured it would be with the air show going on and all and it was about as close to the perfect trip as one could hope for. I thought flying such a big helicopter would be way different but it wasn't. Aside from having more space in the cockpit there wasn't any significant difference other than feeling the throttle rolling by itself in my hand which was pretty odd lol. Bill's ship flew great and the rotor system was about as smooth as it could get. Some of the pics below show what appears to be wooded areas we flew over but if you look real close you can see water between the trees which to me means swamps, gators and snakes so flying over alot of it I was thinking, come on baby don't fail us now lol. Bill's R44 also double duties as a camera ship. It's totally set up with everything your local TV station needs to do a complere broadcast live from the air. It even has a small stage light that lights up the reporters face as well as a cockpit cam that shows them when they choose to. At first I imagined that it could only make recordings which were then taken back to the TV station but it actually has the capability to send it out live via microwave transmission. Bill said the ship was just used a short time ago to broadcast one of the Nascar like races here in Florida. Looking at all the controls for the cameras and transmitters on board one can't help to think that you'd have to be a rocket scientist to run it all.
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Andrew and Bill |
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The trip was fantastic. Getting to actually go out and fly over a large part of Florida was totally kewl.
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The ride home passing through northern Florida in the storms
Traffic wise I think the entire USA was trying to leave Florida at the same time we were. It was bumper to bumper stop and go traffic on I-75 from I-4 all the way up to I-10 and not much better after that lol. We didn't hit open roads until we got to Tennessee and it was a pretty hairy ride until we got north of Valdosta. Up to that point we drove through tornadic weather with heavy winds from the southwest of 28 mph with gusts up to 34 mph not to mention the heavy horizional rains we encountered. After that weatherwise it was great.
Knoxville to Sun N' Fun and back trip stats
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Knoxville to Lakeland |
Lakeland to Knoxville |
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707 Miles |
708 Miles |
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12.5 hours Driving time |
13.11 hours |
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21.5 hours Total trip time |
24.02 total trip time |
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Total Miles 1,415.0 miles |
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Total Fuel |
$824.79 |
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Trailer Tires |
$407.59 |
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Insurance |
$2,500.00 |
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Misc. |
$220.65 |
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Total Trip Costs |
$3,953.03 |
END
