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 Introduction Early springtime in Indianapolis is the time when one’s thoughts turn to………..getting the heck out of the dreary cold weather and heading someplace warm! If you own any one of the fine RV series of aircraft, then you are capable of turning these thoughts into action. And so my quest to fly my blue and white RV-6 from one fine corner of our country to the other continues. After successful trips to AirVenture in August and Copperstate in October, my son and I were itching to hit the friendly skies again. And if you fly and live within striking distance of Lakeland, Florida, then April means Sun-n-Fun. For us, the trip would also include going all the way….all the way to Key West that is.
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The Indianapolis First Air Force always puts together a group to make the pilgrimage down to Sun-n-Fun every year and this year would be no exception. In fact, it would be the largest group ever to go thanks to a bunch of relatively new members. Our trip director, Gary Rodgers (The little RV-3 that could), coordinated the details. We had 14 aircraft planning to make the trip. This included one RV-3, five RV-4s, three RV-6s, three RV-6As, one RV-8, and a Mustang II. Our
original plan was to depart for Cedar Key, Florida on Saturday, April 7.
As it turned out, thunderstorms rumbled through the Midwest and
Southeast each day of the week preceding our planned departure date.
Part of the group decided to make a dash for Florida on Thursday.
(This is the group that is either independently wealthy, retired,
or can’t hold onto a full-time job!)
The rest of us decided to wait until Saturday (because we had to
work). The Thursday
group ran into some interesting weather and had to scud run most of the
day. They made it into
Florida on Friday. By
telephone, we agreed to hook up in Cedar Key on Saturday as originally
planned. |
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One of the most favorite parts of any trip for me is the early morning prep. I love to roll the airplane out into the sun, load her up, and soak in the anticipation of a great adventure. After stuffing our usual array of suitcases (2), toiletry bag, tool bag, and cleaning stuff, we taxied out to wait by the fuel pumps for the rest of our flight group to arrive. Right on queue, three other aircraft appeared on the horizon. Clay Smith in his RV-4 and I in my RV–6 jumped into the morning air to join up. Clay was flying with his father, Bob. I brought my oldest son, Alex, a tried and true air traveler.
The weather was cooperating mostly. In Indy, we had some gusty winds and occasional clouds, but the conditions were scheduled to improve the further south we flew. We proceeded due south around Louisville and the Fort Knox restricted airspace on our way to our first fuel stop in Winchester, Tennessee. We all swarmed into the pattern like an invading army, landed, and completely filled up the ramp area around the fuel pumps. The fine folks at Winchester were friendly, fast, and cheap, with fuel costing only $2.00 / gallon. While we were on the ground, we hooked up with some friends from Central Illinois who were flying a Mustang II. We were now a flight of six.
We all took to the air again for another quick two-hour leg to Moultrie, Georgia. Along the way we enjoyed the camaraderie of our fellow flyers. On long cross county trips such as this, it’s comforting to know that you have a bunch of friends around you in case something breaks. As is our usual custom, we engaged in much spirited banter as we flew. Flying together as a group also reminded us that group trips are full of compromises, particularly when it comes to speed and altitude. Our group was mixed with both 180 hp and 160 hp engines, as well as fixed pitch and constant speed props. We usually selected a fixed pitch RV-6A to lead and the rest of us joined up on him. We enjoyed the bright Georgia sunshine as we swarmed into Moultrie, Georgia. The ramp was nice and big and there wasn’t much going on so we had the whole place to ourselves. By this time, the afternoon cumulus had started to build. Although the ceiling was still unlimited, the burbles were starting to shake things up a bit. After a quick trip to the local Dairy Queen for some burgers and drinks, we were back in the air again, destination Cedar Key, Florida.
Once we departed, the flight kind of split up into three factions. I wanted to fly above the cumulus to avoid spreading my Dairy Queen Blizzard all over my instrument panel. Others wanted to stay low to avoid high oil temps from a sustained climb on a hot day and the Fast Guys……..well, they just wanted to go fast. Once we all dialed in Cedar Key, we hit the air and went in our own directions. We all managed to stay in touch with one another as we made the short hop to Cedar Key. I went straight up to 9,500 ‘ and cruised in smooth bliss, while three others pounded it out at 3,000’. The two fast guys were all over the place. The funny thing? We all arrived at Cedar Key at nearly the same time. The fast guys were calling a mid-field cross wind just as I entered 5 miles out. Once I was downwind, the three low guys entered the pattern. All that flying at different speeds and different altitudes didn’t seem to make much of a difference, on this leg anyway.
Cedar Key is a neat fishing village located on the northern Gulf coast of Florida. The 2300’ runway sits on a small island. Once you call on the Unicom to announce your arrival, the “Van Lady” will call you back to see if you need a ride into town. Once we all landed, we found that our buddies that left on Thursday were there to meet us. We taxied in to the ramp area, filling it up to the max with RVs. This forced a Bonanza and a Mooney that landed after us to tie down on the other side of the runway. Too bad spam canners!! We secured our birds and headed into town for a room and some fresh seafood at the local eatery.
If
you fly into Cedar Key, remember that there aren’t any fuel services
there. You also will need to bring your own tie-downs.
If the wind whips up, there’s nothing much to protect your
airplane. This was the first
time that I got to try out my titanium tie-downs from Randy Simpson.
They worked great although it didn’t take much to spiral them
into the sandy soil. Hope the
wind doesn’t blow too hard tonight. |
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We awoke to another gorgeous day in paradise. A light breeze was doing its best to blow the morning fog inland and the sun was shining brightly. The group formed up at breakfast and we made our plans for departure. We now had a flight of ten aircraft. Most of the crew planned to land in Winter Haven. Only Bob Japundza and I were going to make the flight into Lakeland. It seems that the others had made their trek into Lakeland previously, and they didn’t relish the daily ritual of cleaning an inch of black grime off of their airplane in the morning. Bob and I had already made our decision that we were going to be on the flight line no matter what.
I’m sure that as our ten aircraft screamed out of Cedar Key that it must have been an interesting sight. We took off over town and followed the coastline around and to the south. Staying relatively low in the morning scud, we joined up across the sky in a ten-ship formation. The morning was cool and smooth, although visibility was somewhat less than 5 miles I’m sure. As we skirted the Tampa class B airspace, most of the group peeled off to the East towards Winter Haven while Bob and I entered the transition over the lake and the power station. We were right at prime time so we got to enjoy a couple of laps around the lake. Just as I was over the northeast corner of the lake, the approach controller called for me to lead the group into the airport. “That’s just great!” I mumbled to myself. This being my first time flying into Sun-n-Fun, I had figured that I would be following someone in the pattern, not leading the group so I wasn’t quite familiar with the approach. Luckily, I had the NOTAM out and my son scrambled to find the right page. Okay, okay, got to find the flashing strobes…… keep the golf course on your left……find the water tower on your right……close in downwind when you hit the airport perimeter road……cleared to land on spot two……okay, where’s spot two??? There it is. Bam, bounce, bounce, down. We made it! Now it was taxi time, and taxi we did. We were routed all the way to the east boundary of the airport so that we could be routed to the homebuilt area at the west end of the airport. But we finally reached the RV area and we shut down to pull into a parking space and to survey the rows and rows of RVs present. Since Bob was ahead of me in the holding pattern, he got to be the last one in. I probably waited 15 minutes for him to show up. We tied our birds down next to one another in row 9 by one of the entrance gates and left to check in.
One of the things that I like to do at these shows is to remove my cowling so that builders can get a look firewall forward. I know that when I was building, I had tons of questions about how to route things up front, so I like to try and help out as much as I can. This managed to generate a significant amount of interest as I found it hard to get away much to look at the other airplanes. We
met our Winter Haven friends at 6:00 PM at the food tent for the long trek
out to the cars. After a stop
for more seafood, we checked into our hotel in Winter Haven and hit the beds
early. That sun really takes a
lot out of you in a hurry. I
made a note to get some stronger sunscreen too.
This SPF 30 stuff wasn’t going to cut it as my nose and arms were
already red. |
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This day was spent wandering around the show grounds looking at the displays, visiting the booths, and checking out all the great RVs on the flight line. So many of the RVs are just outstanding. I’m not sure it’s possible to build an ugly RV. We stopped by Van’s booth to take in the RV-7. It is a super fine looking bird. The additional length and the taller vertical stab make the looks totally different. She’ll be a fine addition to the stable. We also spied a twinjet Mooney. Sure looked like a static display to me.
When
we first hit the flight line in the morning, we were treated to our first
dose of Lakeland dust. The
entire airplane was covered in black grime, soot, dust, and dew.
It was quite a mess. I
don’t know if you can tell much in the picture, but I tried to snap a shot
of it. We cleaned it off as
best we could but we figured that everyone was in the same mess as us, so we
didn’t sweat it too much. |
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This was the day that Alex and I decided to make our break for the Keys. The weather to the south of us was going to cooperate all week, but the Midwest was looking iffy later in the week. Since the only reason son number 1 came along was to go to the Keys, I thought I better head in that direction before he mutinied. Besides, he had seen too many MTV Spring Break shows and he wasn’t seeing the caliber of young women that he thought should still be kicking around Florida this time of year. After doing our best to remove the previous day’s grime, we climbed in and headed out for departure. We were pleasantly surprised at the short line and we only waited about 10 minutes before we received permission to depart.
Our plan on getting down to the Keys included a direct flight to Homestead, just south of Miami, and then we would follow the islands all the way out. We had to fly for about 45 minutes over the Everglades as I kept a keen eye on the engine gauges. The northern Everglades were pretty dry. I was scouting places to ditch just in case something happened. When we got closer to the southern coastline, the Everglades became more filled with water and even less hospitable. The airplane purred along in the morning air as the southern coastline came into view. Just as we crossed the coastline, we picked up the highway and proceeded outbound on the north side of the islands.
The sight was simply spectacular. Green islands, turquoise blue water, and puffy white clouds filled the windshield. It is hard to capture the contrasts in color on film, but Alex and I were in awe of the scenery before us. Pretty soon, the airfield at Marathon came into view and went. About thirty miles out, I called into Navy Approach to announce our position and intentions. He cleared us direct and soon handed us off to the Navy tower for transition of the NAS airspace before landing at Key West International.
We had been following a Piper Cherokee, who was about ten miles ahead of us. When the Cherokee called into Navy Tower, he turned the Cherokee south, out over the water, to avoid the NAS airspace. I was planning for the same thing when I called in. Instead I got “Experimental 417G cleared for the low approach down my runway. I want to get a closer look at your airplane.” Way cool. I turned to Alex and said, “It doesn’t get much better than that!” So I dropped down to about 20 feet off of the runway and flew a 160-knot low pass right down the middle of the Navy airfield. “Nice airplane” the controller said as he handed me off to the Key West tower, who immediately cleared me for a close in left-hand pattern to runway 9. We landed ahead of a Delta commuter and that poor Cherokee driver.
When I got to the ramp, there were six other RVs on the ramp. Seems that we were not the only ones to think of making the extra jump from the air show. The ramp folks parked us right up front by the FBO building. We secured the airplane, made hotel arrangements, and secured taxi service over to the harbor and our hotel.
We had a fantastic day wandering around old towne Key West. We grabbed lunch, spent some tourist dollars, swam in the ocean and the pool, and then wandered downtown for the daily sunset celebration in Mallory Square. Each evening, weather permitting, local performance artists set up in Mallory Square for kind of a folk circus. Everyone gathers about two hours before sunset to watch the performers, see the sailing ships come into and go out of the harbor, and to watch the sun set on the western waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was quite a show and the sunset was spectacular.
We then headed to a local steakhouse, which sits up on the second floor of a building that overlooks the harbor. The windows were open and a cool sea breeze flowed through the room. We had an enormous steak dinner and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the local commercial fishing boats returning for the day. While we were eating, my cell phone rang. It was Bob Japundza and the rest of the gang up in Winter Haven. After talking to Flight Service, they were making the decision to return home on Wednesday. Seems the weather Gods were converging in the Midwest and the weather was going to turn very lousy for the rest of the week. Although the weather in Florida was going to be great the rest of the week, it seemed that tomorrow was the best day to make it as far north as Indianapolis. I told Bob that we planned to spend another day in the Keys and that I’d see him back home.
It had been one incredible day. This rivaled our Phoenix, Sedona, and Grand Canyon day from our trip in October. We hit our beds and slept like kids.
Early in the morning, I tuned in the Weather Channel to look at my options. Things didn’t look good for later in the week. A call to Miami Flight Service confirmed what Bob had told me the night before. If we were planning on going to Indy, it would either be today to late in the weekend. I broke the news to the teenager. He was not a happy camper, however he let me know that as much as he wanted to stay, he would support my decision. He’s a great kid and a great traveler. I told him that I’d rather be safe to fly another day than push the weather. So, we loaded up our stuff and made our way to the airport to head back. The weather looked great all the way to Tennessee, and then the clouds might cause us some problems. We loaded the airplane and called up the Tower. Even though the airspace was quite busy with the morning commuter aircraft, he took the time to chat with us about the airplane and our destination. We broke ground right at 8:00 AM Indy time and turned south to avoid the NAS airspace. We stayed low as we followed the islands east, being careful to stay on the south side of the islands. The air was clear and smooth, and the sights were just as spectacular going back as they were coming down.
As we got closer to the Florida coastline, I made the turn north to cut through the bay and head up the central spine of Florida. The morning clouds were still present over eastern Florida so we climbed to 6,500’ to stay in the clear. We flew just to the east of Lakeland and we had a perfect view of the big show again. The tailwinds were light but favorable and it looked like we could make it to Cross City. We made our way into Cross City for fuel and a check of the weather. Unfortunately, Cross City is French for “Out in the Middle of Nowhere”. The folks were nice, but they didn’t have any weather services. But what they did have is fresh, homemade raspberry pie. It was downright tasty. We gulped it down and headed out once again. After climbing out of Cross City, we began to pick up some stronger tailwinds. The plan was to round the southern corner of the Atlanta airspace and then head for Winchester, Tennessee again. The clouds continued to build a little so by now, we were at 8,500’. We made the turn south of Atlanta and wow; the tailwind really picked up. Pretty soon, we were doing 205 knots across the ground. I arrived over Winchester with more than half tanks! No sense in loosing out on this tailwind so I kept going. My plan was to fly a direct heading to our home airfield and when I got low on fuel, stop! Well, when I plugged in Franklin Flying Field in the GPS, it said I was only 1 hour and 20 minutes out!!!! I couldn’t believe it. According to my calculations, I had two hours of fuel remaining. So onward we trekked keeping a close eye on the clouds and a close eye on the fuel gauges. Pretty soon, the Ohio River appeared on the windscreen. The clouds continued to build but there was only about 6/10th coverage with plenty of big space to come down through. The airspeed held at 205 knots and the fuel looked good. Just for fun, I dialed in the RV frequency (122.75) and I heard Bob and Clay talking. Seems that they had left Lakeland at 6:30 AM and had made two fuel stops. They were down low dealing with the high surface winds and turbulence. The kicker was, they were only about 15 minutes ahead of me! Over the course of the day, I had left an hour and a half after they had, I had to travel 250 nautical miles farther, and I had almost caught up with them. How sweet. One of the things I like most about my RV-6 is that its climb capabilities make it so easy to stay high. I can see no reason to stay low and beat it out when you can legally stay above it. By this time I was at 11,500’ and only 15 minutes out of my home airport. I circled down through a big hole and successfully negotiated the 15-knot winds on landing to find Clay just leaving the fuel pumps. After topping off, we taxied back to the hanger and put that sweet bird delicately back into the hanger. She shined in the afternoon sunlight, proud of her great performance. I’ll reward her with a trip to the wash pad later in the week. I give her one last glance as I close the hangar door. Another great adventure in the books.
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