We made a trip to Florida in mid-march and I would like to share some pictures and information regarding Air & Space venues which we took in. I must preface this with the fact that my wife is patient and indulged me and my interests in this. If it were up to me, I would have spent the entire time going from one aviation museum to another, but she actually wants to see other stuff too…who knew?

We travelled a circle route around central and southern Florida, starting and ending in Orlando. Down the Atlantic coast (Space coast to gold coast), across the Florida Keys to Key West, up the gulf coast to St. Petersburgh/Tampa Bay area and returned to Orlando. This allowed us to take in many attractions including Kennedy Space Center, Little Havana in Miami, Ernst Hemmingway’s house in Key West and a stop in Lakeland Florida, home of Sun ’n Fun, to name a few.

Here follows some fun facts about Florida. The Oldest inhabited city in the country is in Florida, it has the Longest Coastline in the continental US, it’s the only state that borders the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, it has the Southern most point in the Continental USA, anywhere in Florida, you’re never more than 60 miles from the nearest body of water and finally, The World’s first scheduled passenger flight occurred in Florida. It happened on January 1st, 1914. SPT Airlines flew from St. Petersburg to Tampa, using a Benoist Type XIV flying boat.

We went to the Florida Air Museum located at Lakeland Florida, home of the Sun ‘n Fun fly-in event, happening this week April 09-14 and celebrating 50 years, having started in 1975. Wish I was there a month later but it’s still a great stop.

Having never seen an F-14 Tomcat in person before, this was a real treat. It’s hard to fathom how far back this aircraft goes in it’s development and operational history. Iran is now the last of countries to use them anymore.

For an aircraft that first flew in 1970, it still has a fairly modern appearance and looks fast even sitting still. Standing near it, you get the sense of how big it actually is, this thing is a beast! It has a Gross of 61,000 lbs and a MTOW over 74,000 lbs.

In the Top Gun movie sequel Maverick, they relied on CGI for the F-14 flying sequences. As fascinated as I was with this aircraft, another Navy jet on static display really captured my interest and attention.

This is the Convair F2Y “SeaDart”. It was a design that was flight tested but was never mass produced or put into service. This is one of only 5 ever made. They have the distinction of being the only seaplane to exceed the speed of sound. The hull would float on the water, then when it acquired enough speed it would get “on step” by riding on the two massive skis near the front.

The F2Y was designed to overcome the problems supersonic aircraft of the time, experienced taking off from and landing on aircraft carriers. It was meant to operate from the water instead. May seem an oddity today, but it was designed & flight tested in 1953-54, then retired 1957.

The development of the F2Y is closely linked to the F-102 Delta Dagger. The F-102 eventually, through a series of improvements, would become the F-106 Delta Dart. The interesting connection with last month’s meeting is that these Delta-winged aircraft were all developed in the 1950’s same as the Avro CF-105 Arrow.

Question, has Piper ever built a Jet? Answer, Yes the PA-47 “Piper Jet”. Only one prototype was ever built. It first flew July 2008 and was cancelled October 2011. Interestingly, a husband and wife who were volunteer tour guides at this museum were both retired Piper employees and worked on this prototype aircraft. I had an interesting conversation with them about it. This is a fantastic museum!

In another part of our journey, we spent a day at the Kennedy Space Center. The last time I toured there was in 2008. At that time the shuttles were still in service. Now retired, the Space Shuttle Atlantis was on display and we had a close up look.

This shuttle had a successful career, travelling 202,673,974 km and 4,848 orbits around the Earth. That’s a lot of circuits!

I’ve always been a nerdy fan of the space program, specifically the Apollo era, and have been fortunate enough to have visited Kennedy Space Center three times (1968, 2008 & 2024) and Johnson Space Center in Houston once. (2023)

There is so much to see here, it is definitely worth the trip. If you’ve not been, put it on your bucket list. I get quite a profound feeling, in that it has the spirit of futuristic optimism, yet it’s so historic. Apollo 11 happening 55 years ago, when it did it, it was only 66 years after Orville and Wilbur first flew.

We hung around a viewing area in Port Canaveral that evening for a scheduled night launch of a Falcon 9 booster, with a Starlink payload. The time was pushed back twice for passing weather, then around 21:40 local time they started fueling the rocket and the last two minute countdown began… then suddenly the launch was scrubbed!!! Never found out why. Many disappointed viewers there, myself included. Maybe I’ll see an actual launch one day. One can only hope.

I would like to say we had a blast this vacation but that would be a real “groaner”. Instead I’ll say we had a ball and saw a lot of very interesting Air & Space stuff along with all the other nonaviation things we did. It was a fantastic trip!