Sun ‘n Fun

Nigel Hitchman reports on the first big show of the 2022 season…

Sun ‘n Fun, or ‘Aerospace Expo’, as it is now called, was held at Lakeland, Florida 5-10 April. For a first-time visitor there was still plenty to see, but it’s far from the event it was in its heyday 20 years ago, when it really was a mini Oshkosh. There was still a good-size exhibition area with many of the major GA manufacturers having small stands and some aircraft on display, plus a number of smaller manufacturers and kitplane companies. The exhibition area is now primarily four buildings and an outdoor space that extends to the start of the aircraft parking area. It’s a lot bigger than the LAA Rally exhibition, but small compared with Oshkosh or Friedrichshafen.

The big homebuilt parking area of previous years is now empty. Homebuilts are now parked further back towards where the homebuilt camping has been in previous years. In terms of numbers, there’s probably half the amount you would have seen at the last LAA Rally. There’s also less vintage aircraft than you would see at an LAA Rally too. I counted seven or eight Stearmans and one Staggerwing as the only biplanes. Other pre-WWII aircraft included two Howard DGA15s and a very nice Aeronca 50 Chief. Among the classics were a line-up of around 10 Cessna 195s, including two of the so called ‘196’s, which are 195s re-engined with a 450hp Pratt and Whitney R-985. One of these was a new restoration. There were also five or six nice Cessna 120/140s, one Piper Vagabond, four or five Cubs and a handful of PA-12s.

Oddly there was not a single Luscombe or Taylorcraft and no other Aeroncas. There were lots of contemporaries, with rows of Bonanzas, Commanches, Cessna 172s, 180s, 185s and PA-28s, which swelled the ranks of the vintage area making it look full! Four nice Beech 18s could be found here, as well as a couple in the warbird area.

The most interesting vintage aircraft on the field was unfortunately in the Florida Air Museum storage building, which was opened up for some practical demonstrations. This was the Curtiss-Wright 16E Kelito built for the Argentine Navy in 1935. It was restored in the early 2000s and flown as LV-ZAW, exported to Florida in 2006, and it has been flown rarely, and was sold to the museum in 2020. It still looks in excellent condition, what a pity it wasn’t brought out into the vintage parking area where it would have been the star of the show. Only one CurtissWright 16 is currently flying and that is in Argentina.

A couple of Grumman Widgeons and a Mallard were of interest in the seaplane area, together with one Seabee and a handful of Lake Amphibians and Cessnas.

While we don’t see many warbirds at fly-ins in the UK, there was a good selection here, although, again, far fewer than in previous years. The main warbird ramp now has corporate tents and airshow viewing areas on one side and half the other side is taken with non-warbird exhibitors.

Warbirds

Half the ramp was full of modern USAF aircraft, but there was a Douglas A-26 Invader, Silver Dragon, North American B25 Mitchell, Panchito, a Douglas Skyraider and Grumman FM-2 Wildcat from Cavanaugh Flight Museum, the Jim Tobul F4U Corsair and two Curtiss P40s. The latter were both two-seaters, one being Thom Richard’s, which he used to give instruction in until the FAA stopped him, and the other one which had just come out of a restoration at American Aero Service for a local customer. A previously crash-damaged airframe, it had been initially rebuilt by Chris Kerchner at Leeward Air Ranch. There were also seven or eight North American P-51Ds.

Boeing B-29 Superfortress Doc was present for the last three days, and it was a great sight to see it coming and going, as rides were being sold. For me though, the highlight of the warbird area was Dornier Do-28A N841RS, now a very rare type, and is one of two flying in the US (and a third on the FAA register based at Old Warden).

Both of those in the US were part of the Isle Royale Seaplane service, which operated from Houghton in northern Michigan to Isle Royale on Lake Superior. The company owning them lost the contract back in the mid-1990s and N841RS remained in a hangar at Shawano WI, sitting on its floats gathering dust. Recently, it was purchased, cleaned up and restored, and is back flying without the floats for the first time in many years. Still in its red livery, this actually came from the Danish company that previously owned it and operated it in Greenland in the 1970s and 1980s as OY-AII.

It was also good to see Catalina N222FT, which was offering training flights and flew several times. This had been owned by the late Connie Edwards for 20 or so years until recently, perhaps more familiar to us in the UK as the aircraft which landed in Plymouth Sound in 1986 as part of a US Navy 75th anniversary celebration but unfortunately hit a buoy in the harbour after landing. Continuing the seaplane theme, there was Grumman HU-16 Albatross N7025J, which was operated by the International Test Pilots School in London, Ontario recently, its colour scheme copied from the Empire Test Pilots School at Boscombe Down.

There were four Scottish Aviation Bulldogs, three former Swedish AF and one former RAF, oddly one of the former Swedish ones was painted in RAF-style colours, but with Swedish markings in place of the RAF roundels!

Homebuilts and ultralights

The ultralight exhibition area was fairly busy, mostly with LSA types familiar to us in Europe. One different type was the Silver Light American Ranger AR-1 gyroplane, which is available as a kit with a builder assist programme in the US and as factory built for export to other countries (where legal, so they say) silverlightaviation.com

There were very few Ultralights of the American definition, but there was the very first CGS Hawk built in 1981, which is due to be displayed in the Sun ‘n Fun museum after the show ended.

Much of the flying at the Ultralights area was taken over by demonstrations and competitions with STOL aircraft, which consisted mostly of Just Highlander/Super STOL types and various Super Cub Variants together with one Zenair CH750.

One of the Super Cub variants was the Patriot Aircraft P-19 Super Patriot, which is the latest reworking of the

Super Cub design concept now on the market.

Another highlight was the Scale Wings SW51, making its debut in the USA where it proved very popular, although it did not fly. The first SW51 flew in the Czech Republic in mid-2021, a long time since we first saw its forerunner, the Funk FK51’s sensational debut at Friedrichshafen in 2014.

New types

Legend Aircraft, famous for its J3 Cub look-alikes, was making a big push for its AL18 MOAC, which stands for Mother of All Cubs. It is probably the largest of the Super Cub clones and even has leading edge slats. Kits start at $94,000 not including engine/prop or accessories – and of course you would have to get LAA approval… legend. aero/moac/

The Scalebirds P-36 replica powered by a five-cylinder Verner radial has been under development and in build for a few years. It was completed in time for Sun ‘n Fun, and hopefully by Oshkosh we will see it flying.

The Flight Design F2 was the only truly new aircraft on display. Available as a 600kg ultralight, a US LSA and as a CS-23 fully certified aircraft. Powered by a Rotax 912iS or 915iS, the 600kg Ultralight offers a payload of 220kg.

A new aircraft, for me, was the Montaer MC01 N850BR. This was introduced to the USA last year but has been built in Brazil for almost 10 years. Originally a four-seater, it’s now being marketed as a two-seater LSA, and consequently has a very large baggage area. It features a steel tube cockpit area with the rest of the structure is aluminium. www.montaeraircraft.com

New to the USA, but not to us Europeans, were the Blackshape Gabriel, and Corvus Fusion.

Looking golden-age but in fact brand new, the newest production Waco Aircraft Great Lakes, was at the show ready for delivery to its new owner.

Next year’s dates are 28 March-2 April. I wonder what the future holds for this event, as the main focus of the organisers is clearly now a big public airshow on the weekend to draw in the local crowds with teams like the Thunderbirds or Blue Angles and a few other military aircraft, plus the US airshow staple of single-seat aerobatic aircraft. The ‘fly-in’ which was once the main event, is really now just a minor part of the show. This year I met several pilots at busy outlying airports such as Winter Haven, who had diverted because of prolonged holding getting into Lakeland due to closures for military aircraft or the vastly increasing Amazon Air Freight traffic. Amazon now has a large ramp on the north side with around eight to ten Boeing 737s and 767s coming and going during the day. I am told this will continue to expand in future. ■