BK1 Sun-N-Fun 2006 – Magnitude Three Chair Blow Over

One of the nicest things about Sun-N-Fun is how much they encourage you take advantage of their volunteer program. First they have all sorts of interesting things to do, and they reward you in a substantial way for your effort. At the volunteer booth they still had me on the list from the one time I last worked for them in 3 years ago. Signed up again to lead the student tours since it is such a good fit for me. Get my morning exercise by taking a group on a walk all the way around the event, through ultralights, vintage, warbirds, and homebuilts. All the while talking about my favorite subject, airplanes and taking lots of great pictures. For this “work” I get the weeks admission to the event, a camping permit, and access to the volunteer mystery meat sandwiches. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

A typical day goes so fast. Get up, tour guide duty, stand by the BK1 duty, lunch, airshow, and then the corn roast to end the day. In between talking to many people and maybe walking through an exhibit or two on the way to get food and back. The fast going days quickly add up to a fast gone week so we will just hit the highlights. Sun-N-Fun has a Homebuilder’s Showcase every day, but you have to get there early and reserve a slot. Took till Wednesday before I got there on time to get signed up. During the briefing they show you an ancient aerial map of the site and explain how you fly around climbing and diving over and under the paths of the other traffic. It’s a looser operation that Oshkosh, but it seems to work well. While waiting for my time in front of a flight of three Lancairs, the air boss ask if I would go behind them because they planned to show off their high speed. “Sure”, but as they taxied around couldn’t keep from ribbing them by saying, “I’ll try not to make you guys look slow.” It seems Lakeland has a built in crosswind, but today it was not that bad and soon we were flying around Sun-N-Fun climbing up over the ultralights, diving just over the bi-plane rides, then swooping over show center next to the homebuilts. You don’t know exactly how many lap they are going to let you take, but after a couple of rounds I hear, “BK your done.” Now its time to call the tower and say, “BK exiting showcase, asking permission to land.” In all the chatter on the tower frequency barely made out my clearance, just in time to make an incredibly steep approach to a thankfully long and wide runway. On Friday’s showcase thing went about the same, except for the crosswind. Before it started a gust turned over my folding chair, once, but I decided to go. After a couple of laps setting up my crosswind slip on short final and knew by the amount of rudder needed that this was going to be the largest crosswind component the BK1 has ever tried. Let it drift over to the right to take advantage wide runway, but as the speed bled off in flare the canopy induced float set in. Just as the rudder was about to run out it touched down on the right main. She was just starting to weathervane into the wind when the left main came down. Until now the BK1’s big rudder has all that has ever been needed to keep it rolling strait. Even thought a few times that all the trouble putting in the toe brakes was just wasted effort. But now it paid off big, with a quick stab of left brake, we were rolling down the centerline with great dignity. If you ever get a chance to do a showcase, it is really a lot of fun.

Really was looking forward to Saturday’s showcase, got the slot just before the airshow and the crowd was getting huge. As time to untie approached the wind blew the chair over. Stood it back up and it fell over again. Turned it more sideways to the wind hoping to prevent the inevitable, but the wind just blew it over again. Looked and saw that they were still using the same runway directly across the wind. Looks like the Chicken Pilot is going to chicken out today, after all this is for fun, isn’t it? Later that day, still feeling like a coward, a Mooney representative came by for a chat. Telling him how disappointed it was to miss the showcase he said, “We didn’t fly today either.” You just don’t know how much better that made me feel, the Mooneys didn’t fly either in the crosswind, after all it was a magnitude three chair blow over.

Thank, Bruce King

www.bkfliers.com

bruce@bkfliers.com