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I had done all the things I had planned at SNF by the end of the day on Thursday, and the weather looked good to fly home on Friday. Saturday and Sunday both looked questionable, so I decided that Friday was the day.

Friday morning I woke up early, so showed at 0600 then started packing and had breakfast. Several of the other campers helped me push the aircraft to a paved taxiway, so I wouldn’t sandblast anyone trying to taxi in the soft sandy ground. The departing traffic was starting to get a bit busy, but I only had a 10 minute taxi, and I was airborne at 0831. It is not easy to depart IFR from SNF, and the weather was great, so the first leg was VFR. I landed in Martinsville, VA after 3:15 flying time, with a nice 10 kt tailwind the whole way.

It was NASCAR race weekend in Martinsville, so the ramp had a bunch of business jets parked, and I had to push the RV-8 quite a ways to find a place to park it after it was fueled. The airport restaurant was packed. The two servers were working hard to keep up, but it took a long, long time to have lunch despite their best efforts. I was on the ground for two hours, which was about 45 minutes longer than I had expected.

The tailwind persisted on the second leg, but only about 5 kt, which was still a nice surprise as the forecast winds were for 5 kt of headwind. I landed in Smiths Falls 3:20 after leaving Martinsville. All the way from central Florida to home in 6:35 flying time. 1072 nm flight plan distance, with one fuel stop. 22.2 statute miles per US gallon, at an average speed from take off to touch down of 163 kt, or 187 mph, or 302 km/h (not including the time on the ground for the fuel stop). It sure is a great way to cross a lot of country pretty quickly.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from SNF. I envisioned something like a smaller Oshkosh, but while I found some similarities there were many differences.

Oshkosh is huge, overflowing with aircraft, and if you want a decent spot you need to get there early - many people arrive a day or two before the show officially opens, but you certainly don’t want to arrive later than the morning of the first day. Fly-in attendees start leaving as early as the end of the first day (keep in mind that they may have already been there three days by that time), and the number of attendees on site decreases steadily as the week progresses.

At SNF, it seems that there is a steady stream of fly-in attendees arriving and departing through the week. There is no need to rush to get there early, and there is a good number of fly-in aircraft on site any day of the show.

The food vendor story at Oshkosh is a sad one. It seems that pretty much every food facility is provided by a single vendor, and there is little variety and no competition. At SNF, there is a wide range of different vendors providing a good selection of menus.

Oshkosh is awash in water fountains. Bring a water bottle and you never have to walk too far to refill it. Fountains at SNF are extremely rare. I didn’t find my first one until half way through my second day there. I found a second on on day three, and there may very well only be the two. They don’t show up on any maps that I saw. For the record, they were between exhibit buildings 1 & 2, and between buildings 2 & 3. At SNF you had better bring a back pack with a brace of water bottles, or plan on buying lots of $2 bottles of water as the need arises.

At Oshkosh, despite the incessant moans from those who think the warbird crowd is taking over, it is clear that homebuilt aircraft are still king. Homebuilt aircraft parking is front and centre, and homebuilt aircraft camping is well located not too far from site centre.

At SNF, homebuilt aircraft parking is in the air show exclusion area, so it is only accessible in the morning. Homebuilt aircraft camping is off the edge of the map, way on the east side of the show site. The only thing that makes homebuilt camping livable at SNF is the wonderful family who volunteer to take care of the campers. It all started 26 (or 27?) years ago, when a local KR-2 builder and his wife started volunteering to take care of the campers. Their children started helping out as they grew up, and now the grand children are involved too. And one young great grand son also tries to help - four generations in all. They provide a large tent with chairs and tables, a constant supply of bottled water and cold beer (and I mean real beer!, not just Bud and Bud Light). Every night they lay on dinner of some sort for the campers. And breakfast and coffee in the morning. There is a “pay what you think it is worth” money pot that everyone stuffs with fives and tens to keep the funding in the black. Thanks Mary Jane and everyone else!

In the left side of the picture you can see the tent at the back of the homebuilt camping area. That tent is the social centre of the universe for homebuilt campers.

Homebuilt camping is way off the map, but there is an excellent tram system that connects it to the main site - you want the Red Tram, which runs from the main site right by the edge of homebuilt camping.

This year I wanted to be sure to be there at the start of Day 1 (Tuesday), as I expected things to fill up like at Oshkosh. I left on Friday morning after three days, as I had done and seen everything on my list. Next year, I won’t be in a panic to get there. I will attempt to stay over Friday night, as Friday is always the big steak dinner night at homebuilt camping. This year Friday was the weather window I needed to get home. There were huge storms in Florida on Saturday - I don’t think I would have been able to leave. And Sunday was terrible in Ottawa (low ceilings and cold temperatures, with certain ice in the clouds)- I don’t think I would have been able to get home on Sunday.

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Similar to Oshkosh, SNF has large outdoor exhibit areas and four indoor exhibit buildings. But both are one third (or less) of the area of the ones at Oshkosh. That is bad if you are looking for some small, specialized vendor, as they may very well not have bothered to come to SNF. It is good if you are only interested in the larger vendors, as it doesn’t take as much walking to see them all.

I bought an oxygen system from Aerox and a Dual bluetooth GPS receiver to use with my iPad and iPod Touch.

The indoor exhibit buildings were very stout structures, which had been designed for up to 110 mph of wind. Someone had tacked on “TESTED MARCH 2011” - a reference to the tornado that wreaked havoc during SNF 2011.

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After getting the camp site set up late Tuesday morning, I grabbed my day back pack and started walking west, looking for lunch. It was a long, long walk to the main site. I eventually was rescued by a passing tram, who got me part way there.

I found sustenance in one of the many restaurants on the main show site. I was overjoyed to see a much larger variety of food vendors than is seen at Oshkosh, where all the food is sold by a single vendor. At Oshkosh the EAA brass knows better than you what food you should eat, and you’ll eat what they tell you - a very top down, socialist approach to things. SNF has the more typical American capitalist approach of multiple vendors competing for your dollar.

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I had a great sleep in Brunswick, and was airborne shortly after 0800 on my way to Lakeland, FL. The tailwinds of the day before had abated to less than 10 kt, the land was flat, flat, flat, and the ride was smooth. I had flight planed a route around a bunch of Restricted Areas and Military Operations Areas, but ATC said no of them were active, so I went direct to SNF.

The SNF arrival was not too busy, but there was one bozo in a Seneca who didn’t follow the published route of flying at the power station on Lake Parker west bound. I was in a line of arrivals flying over the power station westbound, when I saw the Seneca on a collision course from the north. I waited for him to realize that he was cutting into line and break off, but he kept coming. I broke out of line and headed back to the east to get into line again. The second attempt was a winner, and I was soon on the ground at SNF. Yeah!

I kept showing my “HBC” windscreen sign, and followed the marshallers’ directions. Eventually I got stopped by a nice lady who said that someone must have misread my sign, and I was heading for Homebuilt Parking, not Homebuilt Camping. She rounded up a couple of escorts on Harleys, and I followed them down runway 05/23 to get to HBC. It took over 20 minutes of taxiing, but I eventually ended up parked in the right place.

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I had been to Sun n’ Fun once before, in the mid 90s, flying to Orlando via airlines then renting a car. But I had never flown in. This year my work schedule unexpectedly opened up in late March, so I grabbed the opportunity to fly to SNF. The original plan was that Terry would come down with me, but her work schedule got fouled up and she couldn’t break free. I offered the back seat to two coworkers, but both had conflicts. Several other people that I would have liked to offer the seat to had weights that would have created aft CG issues when combined with typical baggage loads. I eventually decided to just go alone, as that was a lot simpler. In the end, I’m glad I was solo, as I bought an oxygen system and it came in a big box that would have been difficult to fit in the baggage area, but was easy to strap down in the back seat.

The original plan was to clear US Customs in Watertown, NY, and I filed the Electronic Advance Passenger Information System (EAPIS) manifest with Watertown as the Customs stop. The Customs officers who handle Watertown are based at the international bridge, and have to drive 45 minutes to get to the airport. But, you can call their office 24 hours a day, and they will drive to the airport anytime after 0800.

But, a strong cold front was forecast to pass through Ottawa Sunday night, and the surface winds after the front were forecast to be strong from the north, which would be a crosswind in Watertown. I hoped the weather forecasters were pessimistic, and the actual winds would be low enough to allow landing at Watertown. Syracuse, NY had a northerly runway, so it was Plan B.

Monday morning I saw that the winds were already up over 25 in Watertown before sunrise, so I gave up on it and moved to Syracuse as the planned Customs stop. Syracuse has Customs officers based at the airport, but they don’t accept phone calls until 0800. I called at 0800, and was told to call back at 0830. Arrgh!

I called back at 0830, and was told that no Customs officers were at work yet, and to call back at 0900. Double Arrgh!!

I called back at 0900, and was told to call again at 0910.

I called at 0910, and finally spoke with a Customs officer. He said he couldn’t find my EAPIS submission. I explained that it had been filed with Watertown, NY as the Customs stop, but that the EAPIS site quite clearly said that a new submission was not required if the Customs stop was changed, as long as the aircraft occupants and date were not changed. The Customs officer said that he needed to review all the inputs in the EAPIS submission before giving me permission to clear Customs in Syracuse, and be could only access the submission if it listed Syracuse as the Customs stop. I said that the EAPIS personnel had already reviewed my submission before they gave me clearance for the flight, and asked if he needed to repeat that work. He did. I offered the EAPIS number so he could find it in the system, but he said that I need to resubmit it. Arrgh!!!!

I hung up, resubmitted the EAPIS manifest and called Customs in Syracuse again. Finally, at 0930, I received permission to come to Syracuse. I got airborne 90 minutes later than originally planned. The big adventure had finally started.

US Customs, once I finally got to see them face to face in Syracuse, were friendly and accommodating. They graciously allowed me to import lunch, despite the obvious extreme risk of possible hidden terrorist pathogens in the forbidden sandwiches.

The winds were about 20 gusting 30, straight across the runway in Smiths Falls when I took off. This was about five kt more crosswind than I had seen for take-off before, but there was lots of control available. The temperature was way below freezing.

Crossing the St. Lawrence River, south bound. I had about 30 kt of tailwind on the way to Syracuse. The crosswind at Syracuse was larger than expected, with about 16 kt of crosswind component. The landing was sporty, but went well.