Sport Pilot Talk

CTflyer · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:00 pm Post subject: AeroNews: Sun n Fun problems

Just read this on AeroNews.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=2034e2a5-cb34-4e29-b788-ab833c09b46e&

"SnF's Decade Long Attempts To Evade Responsibility For Its MANY Problems Has To Stop -
Observation/Opinion by ANN Editor-in-Chief, Jim Campbell"

Could someone please give some personal thoughts on this? If ANN's own Editor in Chief writes so negatively about SnF, it seems the problems aren't exactly trivial. I'm still puzzled why there's been no comments on Sun n Fun here yet; does this AeroNews article explain why?

Thanks.
Tom

tech10002 · Joined: 12 Jan 2009 Posts: 37 Location: Lexington, Ky

I don't know what the author's experiences were, but mine have been far from great this year. My instructor and I flew in Tuesday, but I went down to Fort Myers for a couple days to visit my dad, so I haven't even been to the show except for after hours when I rode in the other day with a vendor to take some pictures of his airplane a customer asked for.

I drove over to the show this afternoon, drove around the whole airport, and couldn't even find where to go in. They have absolutely no signs saying where to enter that I could see. I finally found a parking lot with a tent that said SunNFun, parked, and walked about half a mile only to find it was a vehicle entrance only. I was so disgusted that I just walked back to the car and left. I'm sure there's an entrance that's marked somewhere, but it would be nice if they'd have the courtesy to place signs on all the roads that surround the airport so people not familiar with the area could find the entrance. I don't know if I'm going back tomorrow or not. We already had a bad day flying in the other day. The turbulence was terrible the whole way down, and we had a 25 knot headwind all the way to north Florida. We were in a Sportstar, so we could have drove faster. LOL Tampa approach also handled us terribly. We were on VFR flight following, and they asked us to make a heading change that put us right in the path of 3 aircraft. It wasn't a near miss, but it was way closer than I'd like to see. The controller also refused to give us vectors to South Lakeland saying something like we "should be able to find it ourselves." He was so rude I felt like saying f*** you right over the radio. It was just the nasty way he said it that really set me off. We knew exactly where it was and how to get to it. We just thought they'd be nice enough to guide us in the safest way. All he had to do was politely say they were too busy or something. They need to fire that controller.

Anyway, enough venting for today. LOL

rfane · Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 214 Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Aero-News net is commonly regarded as a complete joke in the aviation community. Take anything said by them in an opinion based report with a large grain of salt. The owner, Jim Campbell, has had a beef with the Sun N Fun folks for quite some time, and has been personally banned from the event. His employees are still welcome to attend. This even went to the courts, where this person asserted his 1st Amendment rights were being violated, which was basically laughed out of court.

CTflyer · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:32 pm Post subject:

rfane wrote: Aero-News net is commonly regarded as a complete joke in the aviation community. ...

Thanks Roger. I hadn't heard that. Altho' I just looked at AOPA's president's news page, and 30% of the items come from Aero-News, so at least AOPA doesn't seem to consider it a complete joke.

http://www.aopa.org/prez/news.html

Campbell does admit in his editorial that he's "barred" from Sun-n-Fun, but it seems he's been right about many of the problems he's mentioned.

Thanks.
Tom

vwvectors · Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 93 Location: Florida

Ever since EAA has stoped running the show ( no pun intended ) the quality & service of the event have certainly gone down hill.

Aero-News definetly has some valid claims.

glyn · Joined: 12 Jul 2006 Posts: 120 Location: Texas

by any mean there seems to be something wrong. if half of aero news claims are true then there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. we have never set up any displays there but have at Oshkosh and have had a great time. some of our people are at SnF right now but are having a good time.
i really hope it gets better.

CharlieTango · Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 8:10 am Post subject:

tha ann article is too vague, what are the problems?

JimNtexas · Joined: 01 Aug 2007 Posts: 27 Location: Austin, Texas

CharlieTango wrote: tha ann article is too vague, what are the problems?

The problem is that Jim Campbell was banned from Sun N Fun, so Sun N Fun was, in my opinion, added to his very long enemies list.

Due to what appears to me to be strong personal animus from Campbell towards Sun N Fun, I'd suggest you just ignore anything Campbell writes about Sun N Fun.

EppyGA · Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 48

I spent Friday and Saturday there this year. The crowd was down as well as exhibitors. All four hangers were full but there was space in the outdoor areas. I didn't venture beyond the exhibit areas though so I can't comment on anything else. The home built area was sparsely populated. The one thing I wish would be a change to earlier in the year. It was 90+ both days and very dusty due to the dryness.

KevinV · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 20 Location: Winter Haven, FL

I live about a half hour from the airport, and work about 5 minutes away from it. I was very excited about going, but an unexpected surgery and subsequent recovery period precluded me from getting there. I'll try again next year.