I apologize for the late hour of this post, but in case you didn’t know, Sun ‘n Fun started Tuesday. The event runs from 29th March until 3rd April at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport (KLAL) in Florida. Unfortunately, I won’t be enjoying the sun nor the fun as I am unable to make my way to Florida this week. That won’t stop me from enjoying what I can of the event via third parties and as a Leaving Terra Firma tradition, I will compile a list of resources in this post that will allow those other poor souls that are unable to have the firsthand experience to get some second-hand experiences. This year the USN Blue Angels are performing at Sun ‘n Fun in case you’re wondering. It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve seen either team perform and I’m really sorry to miss that.
So why am I using Warbird Wednesday to post this? Well, in short because I missed yesterday, but also because the Sun ‘n Fun guys posted a nice collection of Warbird stuff from the show to their Facebook page. I posted it to the new improved Leaving Terra Firma Facebook page (which you should all check out and be sure to like it before you leave).
If you’re looking for some more good Warbird stuff from Sun ‘n Fun, Sporty’s has put up a nice HD video of the evening Aeroshell AT-6 Formation Aerbatic Demo from last year.
The Sun ‘n Fun guys have really stepped up their social media coverage of the event this year, so I would definitely keep following them on Twitter or checking the Sun ‘n Fun Facebook page. Still, the actual event website is a good place to go if you aren’t sure where else to find it. This can be found at http://www.sun-n-fun.org/. The site has event schedules, multimedia, and other information regarding the fly in. It looks like they will post the show daily newspaper.
As for Twitter, the hash tag #SnF11 should be immensely helpful for finding fly-in related content. You can also follow the official Twitter account @SunnFunFlyIn, the guys at Sun ‘n Fun Radio @snfradio or @snfradiodave, and @LiveATC for the latest on the Sun ‘n Fun radio station and live internet streaming. The LiveATC stream of the Sun ‘n Fun radio station can be found at http://www.liveatc.net/SnFLive or by searching on KLAL on LiveATC.net. There are also streams for the Lake Parker Arrival and KLAL Tower so you can listen to aircraft arrivals.
For even more, check your favorite aviation podcasts or blogs. I know for a fact that Martt Clupper of Airpigz is heading down for the fly-in and I’m betting that he’ll put up some stellar content. I follow his blog regularly and I’m never disappointed. The UCAP guys are on scene as usual. They can be found at uncontrolledairspace.com. Check the Pilots Flight Podlog – I’m sure that David Allen is somewhere at Sun ‘n Fun and he will likely be posting all manners of updates during the week which are always great (for advanced users, he’s @DaveFlys on Twitter).
For now I will leave you with perhaps the most depressing photography failure in all my life brought to you by the Chinese M42 screw-mount to K-mount adapter I bought on eBay. Just for some background, I have a really great prime lens for my old Pentax SLR that I wanted to use on my Pentax DSLR. I bought an adapter ring on eBay and didn’t really think about the fact that it would destroy the ability of my lens to focus beyond about 10 ft. So here it is in all it’s glory – a beautiful shot that is post-processed in the extreme, but some how still looks like I took it with my cell phone.
