The big Saturday came and went, bookended by winds, overcast and raindrops of the intermittent kind. No doubt many potential showgoers were deterred by the non-Florida-like weather.
LSA demo flights were conducted apace, although none of the three days of the show have shown the kind of flight activity of previous years because the weather just hasn’t been cooperative.
All in all, a difficult show to accept: so much great preparation from Jana Filip and crew, many LSA exhibitors battling through winter weather across the country just to arrive late, Patty Wagstaff doing two blockbuster performances, ditto Team AeroDynamix, which drew out a good crowd at dusk, yetsmaller crowds than hoped for, challenging weather that wasn’t horrible, just uncooperative, and sometimes you want to ask yourself if somebody up there likes to laugh when people plan an aviation meet.
In the hang gliding days, we called it “meet weather”: Call a competition, expect rain.
Final day tomorrow typically draws small attendance, and a bunch of us are launching at show’s end for 4 days in the Bahamas as part of Mike Z’s annual island flyout. Skies are clear as of 11:30 tonight: fingers crossed as we tuck in to bed, hoping to make up in one morning what we haven’t been able to do for most of the show: photograph and shoot airplanes for pilot reports. More on that later.
Two in the can so far: Tecnam P92-TD (Tail Dragger), a solid, comfortable flyer, and the Pipistrel Sinus motorglider, which I put 5 hours in with Florida dealer Rand Vollmer before the show and even soared in light conditions for half an hour with engine off.
Up tomorrow morning: the RV-12 SLSA which I’ve been itching to fly for some time. Then off to Freeport, Grand Bahama and some hijinks with amphibs and float planes, including the CTLS on amphib floats, which I’ve flown before and will do a full report on.
Meanwhile some quick snaps with stories to follow to
morrow night from, we hope, Freeport.
