Thursday, April 19, 2007
[Note: This blog was meant as a communication channel for
those Lakers who couldn't make it to Lakeathon to keep up on events at the
convention. The prior posts cover that event, but there were a few items of
possible interest that occurred afterward, so I'm posting a series of
(hopefully) short postscripts to round out the trip. These are written after
returning to the Chicago area on 4/29...]
 Practice,
practice, practice/Air boats
(as opposed to "boats of the air" like Lakes)
On Wednesday, I finally slept in a bit and eventually made my
way over to Aircraft Innovation, where Paul's crew had finished adding the
vortex generators to N8012D' s wings, as well as a 2nd bilge pump behind the
step.
I went out for more practice at Lake Mattie (of course), and
over to Cypress Lake (with the alligator canals). In particular, I wanted to
visit another waterfront restaurant Paul told me about, the Cypress Lake
Restaurant (at left, located at N28 05.083 W81 18.221).
 It's
on the eastern shore of Cypress Lake, and also offers RV camping, fishing, and
air boat tours of the nearby lakes.
It was a bit windy and I had a learning experience trying to
get the aircraft securely beached without danger of it being twisted in the wind
and blowing into the way of arriving and departing air boats. Fortunately, air
boats turn out to be both maneuverable and able to drive right up on flat land,
so it worked out OK.
 The
Philly cheese steak sandwich wasn't bad, but the gumbo soup was great. And I
think a number of Lakes could be beached nearby, so it might be a fun fly-out
destination for next year's Lakeathon.
The biggest problem was that in reboarding I wound up bringing
about 5 lbs of bottom muck aboard with my sandals. It actually made it slippery
to use the rudder pedals on landing back at Winter Haven. There's a problem I've
never had with a land plane...guess it's what a Lake is designed for, tho.
I'll consider it a badge of honor.
Sun 'n Fun Splash In
The last event of my stay in central Florida was the Sun 'n
Fun "Splash In" at Lake Parker on Thursday, April 19.
 In
past years, Thursday had been the day for the homebuilts and experimentals, and
Friday was for production seaplanes, but this year the days were switched.
I couldn't stay long, as I had to depart to meet Barb
(finally!) down in Miami a little after noon, but I arrived about 9:30 and
stayed 'til about 10:00.
The local school PTA provided coffee, fruit and amazing
cinnamon rolls as a fundraiser and eye-opener...they really hit the spot. Again,
there were a number of Lakes in attendance, along with a wide variety of other
aircraft. One of the more notable was the blue and white 1993 Travel Air on
straight floats, belonging to Weldon Ropp (above, left).
 Above
is a panorama of the waterfront early in the day at the Lake Parker Splash-In. I
had to leave before she got there, but judging by Myron Mitchell and John
O'Keefe's photos (sample, right), it looks like Julie Fetcko made it by in her
Albatross, tho' the photos don't show her actually on the water...could have
been a flyby.
 Lastly,
at left is a shot of John O'Keefe, Bob Stebbins & Myron Mitchell pretending to
talk about flying-related stuff. (Can you tell Bob--in the pink volunteer's
shirt--is a former TWA captain with lots of practice posing for cool-pilot
pictures?)
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