Thorp Air Command - T18.net

I got vacation Sun n Fun week, so - I'm there!

Hope the wallet allows me to Thorp my way out there, but will be there with or without. Expecting to spend most of my time by the Skydancer Chipmunk & the New Standard biplane. Whoever else is going, my phone number is on the dotNet profile, give me a shout...

-Homey

Homey...I would exercise caution parking on a line with jets ! Even if you are tied down . Even Idle power on a jet could cause damage to your AC . If they apply power in the turn coming out of the chocks you might get an unwelcome surprise !

We had one of our Navy jets at Coast Guard Station Los Angeles blow over 2 small GA AC and one GA twin that WAS tied down was observed to to be "flying" due to the thrust from the engines . Yep the twin was flying in the tie downs about 3 feet off the ground from the airflow generated from the JT-8D engines . All the AC suffered extensive damage . I had first hand knowledge about the event as I had to do the JAG investigation .

It does make for a good photo op next to the jets !

RB

Yah, thanks for the caution Rich it was purely a photo op. Trying to add some class to a line of cheesy looking jets. As soon as I was done with the pics, I scooted it back to the hangar. Then went flying in the second jet from the end

All about the jet blast...

Cheers!

I do love the smell of JP-5 and 100LL in the morning ! Especially if someone else is paying for it ! Thank you Uncle Sugar !

RB

This morning I posted on Sun 'n Fun's facebook page the following;

How about some photos of the classic Thorp T18s? - it's the 50th Anniversary of the 1st all metal homebuilt designed by John Thorp. Show them some love Sun 'n Fun!!!

The moderator "liked" it......and then promptly deleted it. I'm gonna go eat worms.

_________________
Fraser MacPhee
N926WM
Serial #279-1
Angel Fire, NM (KAXX)

Sounds like a right friendly place !

RB

How about some Sun-n-Fun reports from all you Thorpies in attendance. We want lots of color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one is, just sayin.

_________________
Bruce Finney
N18JF T-18C #262
Yelm, WA USA

I'm with Bruce! How about seem luv from the SnF crowd?
Cubes

HI All, I just returned from 3 days at sun n fun. I think the weather affected the Thorp turnout. The only airplanes on the flightline belonged to Highley, Williams and Read. There were a few MII's mixed in. The crowds seemed a lot lighter on Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday attendance felt a little higher. The night show was awesome. We had some scattered clouds just above 2500 feet. The glider show began with the glider in the clouds - very dramatic. I camped next to my Grumman on the west side of the field. I noticed this morning that airplane camping had worked it's was around the corner to 2009 levels. There were others that were leaving as I left this am. I did read that there was another night show scheduled for tonight.
Bill Williams outdid himself again last night in the 'low country boil'. The event was well attended and lots of lies were told. I spoke to a number of guys who would have flown their airplanes south had it not been for the front that essentially cut off the southern part of florida from all ways south until it passed. Plans were made for Oshkosh and Lee Walton brought the group up to date with the most current info.
As the hot air balloons were launching this am - more airplanes were arriving. The weather was forecast to be very nice today.

Blue Skies,

Terry

Gota love those Florida squall lines ! Booom ! They kept me up many a nite at Navy Pensacola during Boot Camp !

RB

David and Karen made it home today in 5.7 hrs. Not bad considering the weather pushed us right to the east coast in Northern Florida and the first part of Georgia. We rode the edge of it half the way home. Had a great time there but glad to be back so I can get to work on DR again. Thanks for the southern hospitality!

Dec 1 sounds good to me. It gets cold up here in S Louisiana at that time of year. I am just north of
New Orleans.

I was there on opening day in my Thorp. As I recall there were 6 T-18's and a couple Mustangs. The only Thorpies I saw where David and Karen Read; I might of caught a glimpse of Bill Williams. I found SnF as a whole lightly attended on Tuesday, still a good time however.
See you all at OSH!

_________________
Chuck Kincer
Richmond, Me
575CK
KIWI

We had the Sun 'n Fun 2013 chairman debrief yesterday. The powers that be related we were down about 9 percent from the overall last ten year average. It was about the same as 2009, when we didn't have a jet show. As many of you know, the Thunderbirds and Blue Angles are grounded.

I put myself in the spotlight by suggesting some radical changes to the event. One of them is that we rearrange the homebuilt parking area to allow folks to stay in the homebuilt parking area during the air show. This would be possible due to the lack of a jet show. A jet show requires a 1500' setback while the regular stuff only needs 500'. What do you think?

Fewer and fewer people are bringing their planes to the event. Why is this? What can we do to get the planes back? This year, the daily ticket was only $25 if you brought your plane; $37 if you drove. We tried a timed performance event with some success. One homebuilt made the lap at 249.99 knots (FAA speed limit is 250 below 10,000 feet.)

Give me some input and I will do everything I can to get this back to an event you can support and enjoy.

_________________
Bob Highley
N711SH
SN 835
KLAL

I'm surprised that more people have not commented on this Bob. In a nutshell I'd say you're on the right track, Sun n Fun labels itself first as a "Fly-In" and then a convention (Expo). It sure doesn't feel that way to me. I predict that if you can find a way to let us stay by our airplanes during the show you'll see a change of heart by many homebuilders. The Antique/Contemporary/Classic's do not have this problem and they seem to make a much better showing than the Custom-builts. In my opinion there have been many great improvements over the past several years but this one restriction is hurting turnout more than anything (at least for the custom-builts).

_________________
Lee Walton
Houston, TX
N51863,N118LW
KEFD