I’ve said it before—Sun ‘n Fun just isn’t the product-launch show of old. My first trip to “spring break for pilots” was somewhere around 1990 as a vendor, when it was the airshow to hit for scoring smoking deals on pilot gadgets. Remember the IIMorrow Flybuddy Loran, King KX99 rig, and the Apollo 920 GPS? Get a demo from guys like Rick Garcia at Gulf Coast Avionics and Harley Bennett at Bennett Avionics, fork over the wad of cash from your sweaty pocket and play with your new toy on the flight home. This kind of retail therapy still exists at the show to a lesser degree, thanks to the well-stocked Sporty’s, Pilot Mall and others, but I think Sun ‘n Fun has lost the retail edge. But if it hadn’t, I’m not sure everyone’s cash would be flowing.
This was the first year in several I’ve attended Sun-n-fun with the intent to visit vendors and attend forums. I discovered there was an app available to help me navigate the expo, so I didn’t take the time to download any materials to my phone before arriving. Silly me. The app is useless at the show unless you have a satellite phone. There is no public WiFi, and cell data is useless with tens of thousands of people all trying to connect to the same tower.
That aside, the decisionmakers running Sun-n-fun seem to’ve put all their eggs into the app basket. After the first day I went back to my hotel with the intent to download stuff to my phone. Imagine my surprise when I found there is no downloadable list of vendors. What? So we were forced to make a manual list of all the vendors and forums we wanted to visit. And if something we saw piqued our interest in a vendor we didn’t put on our list? Good luck finding them. If I were paying for vendor space at Sun-n-fun I would demand they make it easier for attendees to find me.
Kudos to the staff handling those of us who drove in. The check-in and marshalling to a parking spot was superb! All volunteers I saw had great attitudes, too! Thanks SNF!
No wifi? Absolutely wrong. There was wifi, and I connected across the show grounds. I used the app every day, connected via wifi! The barcode for the login password was on your wrist band. Sorry that you missed it.
My one and only time I went to Sun N Fun was by accident. I had just moved to Tampa for work and was still getting to know the area. As a life long aviation buff I was always drawn to aviation events so when I heard about this show up in Lakeland I thought, what the hell. This was the year before I started on my PPL.
No map of the place, no “apps” as it was 1994, just the chance to wander about, ogle at all the planes, watch some air shows, be amazed at vendor booths, spend reasonable dollars for lunch, and other wise just have a blast soaking in the idea of being a pilot.
Within six months, and I do say the show had a big part of my decision, I walked into the flight school at Peter O’Knight airport, right up to the counter and said “I want to be a pilot”. they had me in a discovery flight that day and I started lessons right after that.
The pilot exam was at Lakeland airport so seeing the picture brings back memories on that day with the tower giving me a congratulations as I took the runway, now a certified pilot. I never got to another SnF event as within a year I moved back to DE/PA. doing much of my flying out of IGL or Chester County.
Cost and time pushed me out of staying active as I knew I could not afford IFR and be a safe pilot (even meeting minimums was too much and I wanted more). Now, I feel these shows are so big that they are almost too much now. I’m not one for saying to “roll back the clock”, it’s just that I enjoyed the freshness, the more congenial, the lower cost, the sense of community I felt that day.
I can see it now: Bago Tetra Ethyl Lead, inc.
First step: Write your business plan. The introduction will describe the size of the market, the extent to which an existing vendor has the market locked, and sales prospects 10 years from now. Oh, and the cost to build the facility.
Second step: Watch your investors laugh.
Third step: find the real estate and get building permits. Watch for the expressions of joy from the neighbors when you announce, “I want to make poison in your town. And the jobs will all be gone within a decade. Leaving behind quite the superfund site.”
My first Sun n Fun was when I was s student pilot and it was an EAA Fly-In. Well those days have gone, it is now a (buy my 1/2 millions dollar aerobat or my multi million dollar jet). So I no longer even try to attend. Not my kind of flying fun anymore. p.s. I have driven in (I’m fairly local) about 20 times and fly in 4 times, (twice in a DA-20, once in a C-150 and once in a C-172). Flying in was fun but hair raising, there are a lot of pilots who don’t bother with reading the NOTAM to closely, kind if like they read News headlines, not so much the intent of the story.
I don’t know if the situation has improved, but my only visit was in 2010 and I had no desire to return. Parked in GA parking at the end of the runway, I had a way to go to get to anything. Thinking I could use the tram system I started off. At the first station I waited. And waited. Finally got a tram and realized it was set up in small loops that gradually worked their way from one end of the property to the other, going from one loop to another with a wait in between. I finally decided to walk, figuring I could pick up a ride if one came by. I never got another. By the end of the week, my friend and I were at a vendor buying gel shoe inserts. I have been to Oshkosh and found a much better organized tram system. Occasionally they would be full, but another one would be by shortly. I didn’t understand why SnF didn’t do one large loop which extended the length of the property. You could be within a block of anything and would not have to get on and off multiple trams to get there.
c180tom
(Tom Jensen (please don't post, I get confused with a detective on the Green River Killerf)
11
Aw, shucks, John, 15 years ago and you’re still complaining? We all (two C180’s and a C310) flew from WA State in that same 2010 and stopped at SnF.
It was a trip of a lifetime with destination Bahamas. (Ed. Phelps: nice .pptx document available if you wish, great aviation-family adventure, including rescue by Mike Busch at KLAL with his Saturday help with expert C310 fuel system troubleshooting.)
c180tom
(Tom Jensen (please don't post, I get confused with a detective on the Green River Killerf)
12
Marc, how do I remove my “please don’t post” note? The Green River Killer is still in jail.