Lessons Learned From the Sun and Fun airshow, Lakeland, Florida

[mariness]

1. Blueberry muffins are awesome. (This wasn't at the airshow, but remains true.)

2. Florida has, indeed, built a toll road with only two lanes, showing once again that Florida needs to spend a lot of time thinking about how it handles toll roads.

3. On your way down to the airshow, you will see plenty of planes that look like they should be or could be in an airshow, but aren't. This will give you a false sense of where exactly the airshow is.

4. Florida continues to build a lot of things.

5. The actual airshow will turn out to be kinda but not quite in the middle of nowhere, unless a Geico office building counts as somewhere.

6. The Geico office building will not, to your disappointment, have a single gecko anywhere.

7. Apart from the fact that the disabled parking is ominously completely full when the rest of the parking area really isn't, you will be greatly pleased by the efficiency of the parking situation, and take this as a positive sign for the rest of the event's organization.

8. This will not be a wise move.

9. Bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce.

10. The first hint that just perhaps things are not going to be going well is when you arrive at the ticket line and find out that the ticket line is not moving. At all. Neither is the prepaid ticket line.

11. Fortunately, paying cash for tickets allows you go in.

12. Although this is an airplane event, all sorts of booths will show up to it, including, but not limited to: jewelry makers, homemade root beer, the Puerto Rico tourism board (you are encouraged to fly your private jet to that island), gourmet cooking pots (complete with demonstration), welding demonstrations, World War I reenactors, electric tricycles (not as cool as mine so I didn't get one), light sabers, DVDs and Blurays, barbeque sauce, Sky-Chairs (one of these days I really do have to just break down and get one even if I currently have no place for it), tarot cards, teddy bears, and things actually related to airplanes: engines, engine parts, seat covers, electrical systems, plane kits, and actual planes at a staggering variety of prices.

13. You will decide to ignore all this and hunt down the bathrooms.

14. The first bathroom you locate can only be reached by stairs.

15. Ditto the second.

16. The third portapotty location sort of has a "disabled" unit although it is placed so that it slopes and the entrance is about an inch above the ground.

(I'll skip over the condition inside for my more squeamish readers, though I don't actually blame Fun and Sun for that. People were doing a lot of drinking and it showed.)

17. The first exhibit, of a cargo jet, is completely wheelchair inaccessible so you can't go in. On the other hand this allows you to shelter beneath the shade of a large airplane wing while watching people jump out of planes so some compensation.

18. The second exhibit is also completely wheelchair inaccessible, as are the next three sets of bathrooms you pass.

19. You will begin to understand just why although there are some people in mobility scooters around (not many), there are very few people in wheelchairs, and all but one of these people is accompanied by family members.

20. On the other hand the one guy going around all by himself in a wheelchair was using a SmartDrive system which allowed me to see it in action, which was on its own worth the trip.

21. However, you are not here to complain about disability access. You are here to look at planes. You go and look at planes.

22. Nearly every little plane will end up looking very uncomfortable.

23. Except for the small private jets, which will end up looking very expensive.

24. The pavilion for one manufacturer of these small, expensive private jets, a pavilion selling related merchandise and drinks, will be set up a full foot off the ground with no ramp.

25. At this point I will go ahead and credit Cessna for having one of the few (I think two) accessible airplane pavilions/airplane displays and for being the sole one to offer assistance if I wanted to look inside the corporate jet. Thank you, Cessna.

(To be clear the smaller airplane manufacturers – those just selling one or two planes or kits, who did not have actual pavilions but just tents near their planes, were mostly disabled accessible since the planes were small and on the ground so I could get to them and look at them. I'll get to more of those in a bit. The ones with pavilions and larger planes, not at all.)

26. You will want to go and see the Maverick flying car partly because it's a flying car, and partly because, well, you can.

27. The Maverick flying car will, frankly, turn out to look pretty silly in real life. Also unsafe, but mostly silly.

28. Your attention will be drawn from this by the roar of an F26.

29. You are not actually here to see an F26 but this is a very, very difficult plane to ignore.

30. If you haven't seen one, these things are a) loud as hell, b) big, and c) capable of doing some pretty impressive stuff in the air.

31. So impressive that even the most jaded airplane people will all stop and watch the F26.

32. After this you will go back to doing what you are actually here to do which is to go look at the ultralight airplanes.

33. Since these are the cheapest airplanes available they are naturally displayed only at the far, far, far end of the show after

34. bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce

35. and there will be some difficulty getting there because in the midst of everything else you will have lost your little wristband.

36. Apparently feeling that dealing the bathroom situation is bad enough the volunteers will wave you through anyway.

37. bounce bounce

38. The ultralight planes turn out to be very cool. Some of them have open cockpits which yes, means flying right in the air. Some of them look like they should be on superhero shows.

39. You will realize that flying these will involve a certain willingness to crash in the middle of nowhere after hearing your third story about crashing/landing in the middle of a cowfield in one of these with no cell phone reception.

40. Getting back to the rest of the show requires bounce bounce bounce and also going through the military aircraft and a lot of historical aircraft.

41. A rather distressing number of World War II airplanes have pictures of scantily clad women on them. I'm just saying.

42. World War II airplanes create great shade. This, in Florida, is important.

43. The exhibit for the Berlin Aircraft plane is completely disabled inaccessible. In revenge, you will touch the plane (it was one of the planes that participated in the airlift). In revenge the plane will get grease all over your hand.

44. To your astonishment, you will actually finally see an exhibit of a historical plane that is totally wheelchair accessible with a ramp and everything and –

45. You will realize you spoke WAY too soon. Oh, the ramp is there (very steep, but there) but between the ramp and the exhibit is two feet of air, about ten feet up in the ground.

46. No one wants you to go on planes.

47. BATMAN!

48. Batman deserves capital letters because the Batmobile and the Bat-copter from the 1960s TV will turn out to also be completely accessible. Yay superheroes!

49. At this point it is more or less time to find a spot to watch the Blue Angels.

50. As soon as you realize this, you will also realize that just about everyone else at the event has the same thought.

51. This will not prevent you from finding a place near a very excited kid in a Spider-Man hat.

52. The Blue Angels are, to repeat, LOUD.

53. LOUD LOUD LOUD LOUD LOUD LOUD.

54. Also when you mention them on Twitter they tweet back at you (I honestly wasn't expecting that.)

55. Once the Blue Angels are done you realize that you will have to leave relatively quickly in order to get home for the Florida Gator game which is not really one of your priorities but is the priority of the person who is driving you. Also, there is a nice bathroom at home which is an incentive.

56. Note with hope that although quite a few people are also taking off, most people are staying to watch the fireworks show, which means that bounce bounce bounce you will make it home quickly.

57. Note with alarm as you are heading to the truck that none of the cars on the exit are moving.

58. Like, at all.

59. Really at all.

60. Arrive at the truck in time for the pre-show game talk which would be very interesting if you were not slammed with a major dizzy attack.

61. Spend the next several minutes wishing the planet would stop moving.

62. When the planet does slow down, realize, with alarm, that the cars on the path to the exit have still not moved.

63. At all.

64. This is 25 minutes in.

65. Optimistically decide to head to the left on the grounds that the traffic on the right exit has moved two feet in 25 minutes which is more than can be said for the traffic on the right exit.

66. Realize the planet is moving again.

67. Realize that the planet is moving more than the cars heading the exit are.

68. Realize that no, this isn't exactly true, given that the cars on the planet are hurtling with the planet through space and around the sun and around the Milky Way in an endless race to get as far away from where this all started –

69. You ARE NOT GOING TO THROW UP.

70. The traffic still hasn't moved.

71. The parking lot does have an elevated platform with two people standing on it looking at the parking lot.

72. This will not seem to be helping much.

73. After more time, find yourself directed to head back to the right exit.

74. Realize that forty five minutes later, you have now managed to edge another 30 feet closer to the road.

75. The road, for the record, is visible from where you are. And has traffic moving on it.

76. This forty-five minute period has allowed the little ultralight planes from earlier in the day to head up in the air so you can see how they work.

77. It has also been long enough that the Florida pregame show is now REALLY excited. Because –

78. The game is starting!

79. Wonder if you will be able to leave the parking area before the end of the game.

80. It feels unlikely.

81. Traffic is still not moving.

82. You will find yourself looking wistfully up at the little ultralights realizing that if you had bought one earlier you could have crashed into your house by now.

83. This thought will make you very dizzy.

84. Wow, sports announcers are excitable people.

85. Then again they aren't in this parking lot.

86. Which means they can be happy.

87. You want one of those gyrocopter things so you can be a superhero and go take out people who do poor parking planning.

88. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, traffic moves out!

89. This will turn out to be because the police have finally and I might add belatedly arrived, finally convincing people not to try to make a left hand turn into incoming traffic (some of whom were coming out of one of the two other exits) when several thousand people behind them were trying to leave.

90. (For the record, it took us two and half hours to go from a spot fairly near the entrance, to the truck, sitting at the exit, and out to the road. This is a distance of about 1/4 mile, under a kilometer, close enough to see the road and the traffic moving on it at a decent clip.)

91. You will feel very optimistic. And dizzy.

92. Even though you are not exactly near I-4 and the road home yet.

93. Sometimes, I-4 is a beautiful, beautiful road.

94. And sometimes home is a beautiful, beautiful place.

For the record, Fun and Sun is in many ways an awesome event: huge, with plenty to do, not to mention all of the stunt flying (a lot more than I'm mentioning here.) And if you are looking to buy a plane it's a good place to go – the little planes offer test flights and so on. Most of it was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I went.

The disability access, however, left much to be desired. I do understand that arranging ramps or lifts to reach the entrances of military/cargo jets would have been tricky, so I'm willing to give a pass there. For other issues, no.