Sun ‘N Fun

It’s been 18 months since Mooney Airplane Company built its last airplane but the iconic planemaker is considering a comeback. In a podcast interview with AVweb at Sun ‘n Fun 2010, spokeswoman Susan Harrison said the company and all its dealers have sold through their backlog inventory and she hopes it won’t be long before […]

Randy Babbitt spent four days at Sun ‘n Fun this week, a first for an FAA administrator. Babbitt also is the first FAA administrator who has worked as a general aviation flight instructor, and he spent many years flying for the airlines. Those facts earned him a warm welcome at the show, though he still […]

MS760 Corp is introducing their two-ship aerobatic show this week at Sun ‘n Fun, with two ex-fighter pilots flying the vintage Paris Jet. The team of Dale “Snort” Snodgrass and Jerry “Jive” Kerby are putting two of the sleek Paris Jets through their paces, to show off their capabilities and promote the product. The two […]

The future of general aviation rests in the hands of today’s pilots, AOPA President Craig Fuller said at Sun ‘n Fun on Thursday evening, as he kicked off the event’s annual AOPA Day, which will be held all day Friday. “At AOPA we are busy doing more than ever before to keep flying strong,” Fuller […]

Although calls to Automated Flight Service Stations are decreasing steadily, the service they provide remains valuable, says Jim Derr, the program director of Lockheed Martin Flight Services. In a podcast interview with AVweb at Sun ‘n Fun 2010, Derr said that despite the huge shift in communications, weather and avionics technology over the last decade, […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to download the video directly. The FAA is starting an aggressive campaign aimed at curbing runway incursions in general but GA deviations in particular. At Sun ‘n Fun 2010, Wes Timmons, the FAA’s director of runway safety unveiled […]

Sporty’s is keeping up with the electronic age, now offering a mobile version of its pilot-training video series that will run on smartphones, an iPhone E6B app featuring 23 aviation functions, and its first downloadable e-book. The mobile video series will play either on a 3G/4G network or via wifi, said Sporty’s vice president John […]

Officials from Sun ‘n Fun and the Polk County (Fla.) School Board broke ground Thursday for a $7.5 million facility that will provide a new home for the Central Florida Aerospace Academy, an aviation-oriented high school/career academy already located on the Sun ‘n Fun campus. The 58,000-square-foot facility will house up to 500 high school […]

“The down economy has been good for Build A Plane,” founder Lyn Freeman said at Sun ‘n Fun on Thursday. “We’ve had a lot of donations.” The organization is now accepting airworthy aircraft as well as projects. And the demand continues to run ever higher, according to executive director Katrina Bradshaw. “We’ve started 200 projects […]

Every aviation event needs a few new dreamers who are putting it on the line to make the airplane of their imagination a reality, and at Sun ‘n Fun on Wednesday, those dreamers were John Meekins, president of Privateer Industries, and his director of marketing, Frank Leventhal. The two turned up in the press tent […]