Sun n’ Fun- the nations second largest airshow. Lakeland, Florida. April 2-8 2003. Everything that has ever had anything to do with airplanes is there. The bossman and I fly down there every year in his totally sweet Cessna 340 and walk around and look at airplanes because we are aviation dorks. This year, my brother came along so we could ferry a couple of cars back from Palm Beach to Atlanta. We took off from Atlanta on Friday afternoon in the bossman’s plane (He will be hereafter referred to as Doug)-

He is CEO, so he gets the cool toys. Shortly after we took off, his two kids started talking about “floating”, and asked me if I wanted to do it. “SHUT UP AND WATCH YOUR DAMN MOVIE, YOU LITTLE TURDS!!” I said, but they persisted, and I finally said “okay, sure, let’s float. Whee.” I also made little floating flappy movements with my arms to show how floaty I was. Doug and my brother (hereafter referred to as Josh), were flying the plane at the time, and the kids went up and talked to daddy for a minute, and then started securing all of the loose objects around the cabin. This made me wake up a bit. I guess it was assumed that I knew what was going on, because in a couple of minutes I noticed that Doug had put the plane in a pretty steep climb, and followed that with a zero-g dive. My head and neck hit the ceiling, and I was actually floating. It was fun as hell. We did it one more time, and I tried a maneuver like I had seen the astronauts do. We weren’t weightless quite long enough for me to complete a full rotation, so I landed on my ribs and elbow, much to the delight of everyone except me. I thought, “These kids get to float on a fairly regular basis.” That’s the first time I had floated. Ever. That’s why I didn’t listen when they asked if I wanted to. When Josh and I were kids and said we were going to float, it would have involved couch cushions, a large box, and at least one blanket. No actual floating would have taken place. These kids had their very own vomit comet. Doug said that if you do it wrong, you hear a thump (kids smashing into ceiling), followed by a series of crashes (kids hitting various objects on the floor), then some whining and crying. I instantly saw a means of discipline “Daddy, are we there y- *thump……….Wham-crunch.* whaaaaaa.”

That’ll teach them.

Josh and I flew the plane the rest of the way to Palm Beach, and enjoyed the luxury of driving a plane in which everything worked.

We don’t see that very much in the flight school aircraft. It was all push button flying and cushy deliciousness at 19,000 feet, so we had time to pretend we were Top Gun and all of that.

When we got there, we drove around the airport in golf carts and looked at alligators and airplanes. Here’s a crappy picture of me driving a golf cart on an airport taxiway, doing my best recreation of Tom Cruise riding a wheelie on his fancy motorcycle next to the runway while planes took off, except I am not pretty, and we were going about 10 miles per hour. Josh screamed the words to the Top Gun hit “Raging Fire in the Sky Tonight”. I think it is by Kenny Loggins, but sounds better when Josh sings it.

Doug’s son asked what alligators eat. Jim said “just about anything. Even six year old boys.” To which he replied “Do they eat explosive devices?” Later that night at dinner, he offered to stuff the last piece of pizza in his younger sister’s “Vaginey”. Laugh if you want to. I’m still not sure if that is okay.

We spent the first night in Palm Beach, and got up the next morning to go to the air show. The sore throat that I noticed the day before was now becoming a problem, and I knew that walking around all day in the heat would be great for me.

Jim is this guy who owns an avionics shop in west palm, and is friends with Doug. He is also disturbingly bright. I haven’t confirmed it yet, but I think he is a cyborg. He can estimate distances with laser precision, build any electronic device you can fathom, and fly anything with wings on it. As an example, Doug asked him, pointing to two hangars, “Jim, how far do you think it is from the corner of that building to the center of this hangar door?” Jim looks, and says “well, Doug, I’d say that’s 1123 feet.” If he had said “Oh, around 1000, 1200 feet”, no one would have questioned him. He said 1123, so Doug found this rolly thing that is used to measure long distances and walked it from one point to the other. 1121 feet. The guy has superpowers.

He also has the coolest plane I have ever seen, and said I could fly co-pilot in it on the way to the air show. I humped his leg in gratitude, but quickly realized that I should not be doing that, as my brother was beating me with a rolled up magazine.

This is a Solaris prototype. It was designed in Germany, built by the company that Jim is Vice Prez of, and there are only six in the world. It is like the Bentley of the sky- except totally composite.

We took off and planned on flying in formation to the Air Show, but we forgot to take the hat off the propeller, and of course the plane became uncontrollable shortly after leaving the ground. Jim and I parachuted to safety, but I burned my arm.

I kid with you.

The plane flies like a Ferrari drives. It seems to understand where it is and what you want it to do next. We flew in formation with Doug’s plane and took some pics of his plane in flight. They look cool, but I don’t know where they are. Anyway, if you want to get me something nice for my birthday, this plane is only $300,000. Hurry. Supplies are limited.

I didn’t walk around much at the show, other than the ten miles from where we parked the plane to the front gate. I had a fever and was coughing, I had blisters on my feet, so I just sat and watched some of the most amazing pilots in the world do their thing. Stunt pilots impress me almost as much as their planes do. On the way to Florida, we did two parabolic dives and floated for a total of about nine seconds. I felt pukey after that. Stunt pilots just pretty much go up in the air and tumble around for fifteen minutes, then land and walk around and shake peoples’ hands. In order to be a stunt pilot, you have to have three qualities-

1. You must be an adrenaline junkie

2. You must be immune to motion sickness

3. The laws of physics and aerodynamics cannot apply to you or your airplane.

These people would get up in the air and do things like fly backwards, hover, make the plane tumble end over end, and other stuff that made me say “That was neat looking, and I saw it with my own eyes, but it’s still impossible.”

We finally got off the ground again right before it got dark, and flew over to Roy’s place at Naked Lady Ranch. I guess someone told them we were coming, because they all had their clothes on when we got there. It’s an aviation community centered around two huge grass runways. Landing there at night is an ass-clencher, because the huge trees at the ends of the runway are invisible. Then you have to drive the plane up someone’s driveway and park it like a car. It’s just cool.

Roy has two pets, which happen to be a male and female wolf. They are beautiful, and very big. Here’s me trying not to lose a hand while feeding them. For scale, consider that I am 5’9”, and Balto could take my nipple off without his front paws leaving the ground. Roy said he weighs about 170 lbs. I didn’t try to pick him up, but I believe him.

I do not usually wear socks with my sandals, but rather make fun of those who do. I had huge crazy painful blisters on my feet, and did what I had to, shut up about my fashion sense.

The pups were all happy to see me since they remembered how cool and fun I was from the last time I was there. They apparently liked Josh much better, though-

During the night, I could hear Josh sobbing quietly in the other bed. I think he needs to come to terms with a few things.

Since the only one getting any action from Josh was the male, the Female had to settle for me.

The next day, Josh and I jumped in the cars and headed back to Atlanta. I felt sure I had SARS, and was basically waiting to die. We were both sore from walking so much the day before, plus whatever happened between Josh and the wolf probably left him sort of worn out. After driving for about five hours, we stopped to eat at Applebees (cause we like to eat fancy sometimes). I could barely extricate myself from the car, but I finally made it. I went inside, feeling feverish and just bad, and went to the bathroom. I came back to the table and Josh said “how you feeling?” I said, “Is it bad if your urine is black and explodes on contact with water, then you have to break it off when you’re finished?”

We were both so tired of sitting that we elected to eat standing up. Try that the next time you go to a restaurant. Push your chair back and eat standing up. You hardly get to eat because everyone keeps acting like there’s a sitting law or something until you yell, “OKAY! MY ASS HURTS FROM DRIVING ALL DAY, AND MY BROTHER GOT RAPED BY A WOLF LAST NIGHT!”

I had the wings. They were good except the celery looked like they found it under the fryer. I left a note with my bill and one of the rotten celery stalks that said “Time to open a new bucket o’ celery.” We finally made it to Atlanta at about 10 pm, and I slept that night like it was a competition sport.

Tomorrow-

I’m going fishing. Maybe something funny will happen. Nah, no way.

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