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“It looks like there was a small tornado” among the straight-line winds and downbursts that hit Sun ‘n Fun on Thursday, a National Weather Service spokesman told AVweb on Friday morning. Daniel Noah, in the Tampa Bay NWS office, said meteorologists are working on a full report of the event, which will be posted online at AVweb when it’s available, later today. The storm, which lasted about 10 minutes or so, did extensive damage across the Sun ‘n Fun campus, and damaged about 40 airplanes. By Friday morning, the field was largely cleaned up, though some piles of broken branches and other debris were still to be seen stowed away in corners. Most of the damaged airplanes had been re-located to a remote ramp on the field by early morning. Sopping-wet parking fields were slow to open, and showgoers lined up along the roadsides waiting to get in to park at 8 a.m. But at least airplanes were flying again, a welcome sound above what has been a fairly quiet show so far, with most flying grounded due to the wind and weather earlier in the week.
