Florida Air Museum

Every once in a while I'll saddle up with the crazy old guys with Gold Wings for a trip around Florida.  A couple weeks ago they took off for Lakeland in a winding crazy way that took us through Odessa, but as for the rest, I didn't have a clue.  Our ultimate destination was the Florida Air museum which sounded pretty good to me.  usually they head off to festivals and craft shows so something with "museum" on the end of it made my ears prick up.

Nine of us started out from Barney's Yamaha in St. Pete and 10 of us ended up at the museum.  We had the usual assortment of Gold Wings along with my Yammi, a Honda 1100, one BMW, one Kawasaki Concours and oddly, enough a 600 CC Scooter.  We picked up a rider on a Yamaha Roadster 1600 just outside Carrollton.  He approached us and asked if he could ride along.  More the merrier.

Here we are gathering at Barney's in North St. Pete.  Today's destination will take us to Lakeland via back roads.  My Stratoliner is at the far left.   

Here we are in the middle of nowhere.  I have two worries when I ride with the Old Geezers:  1. running out of gas, since Gold Wings have some kind of 50 gallon tank on them and can go forever.  In fact, I've never seen a Gold Wing at a gas pump come to think of it.   And 2. my second worry is keeping up.  As you can see in these pictures that i took while riding, that i tend to let a little distance get between me and the bike in front of me.  The reason, I'd rather look around and see the scenery than have to worry about running into someone just so it looks like we are a nice cohesive group. 

Most of the time we are riding back roads which allows for some nice sightseeing and breathtaking views.

Managing a motorcycle, taking pictures and keeping up with the Old Geezers who go faster than the speed limit tests my abilities, but I have yet to be found wanting. 

To the south and east of Lakeland is the Florida Air Museum and it has several planes on the grounds that are pretty fun to look at.  The plane above is a Lockheed T-33 T-bird.

Here are the Gold Wingers and I think that's a Concours getting parked and ready to check out the planes inside two hangars.

The above plane with the weird "pusher" prop in the back is a LearAvia Lear Fan 2100.

And finally, on the grounds, and perhaps the coolest thing around is the Lockheed XFV-1.  Hell most of us probably had models of this baby growing up.  It is a plane designed to fly straight up and land the same way.  It was conceived as a way to have as little air strip as possible.  

Even the plane designation is cool.  

"Under the designation Lockheed XFV-1, the company completed and flew the first of two prototypes of a single-seat VTOL research aircraft. Powered by a 4362kW Allison XT40-pA-6 turboprop engine, the Salmon was one of a number of tail-sitter designs originated in the early 1950s. Basically, the aircraft was a conventional mid-wing monoplane without normal landing gear. The tail had equal-span cruciform surfaces each incorporating a shock-strut and castoring wheel, and the aircraft was intended to stand vertically on its tail unit for take-off and landing. However, as the 5294kW T54-A-3 engine intended for the proposed XFV-2 VTOL fighter derivative did not materialise, the XFV-1 was fitted with a temporary conventional undercarriage and operated from this until the whole programme was cancelled in June 1955 and construction of the second prototype abandoned. Span was 9.40m, maximum take-off weight 7358kg and maximum speed estimated at 933km/h."

                                                                                                           Wikipedia

Not mentioned in the above blurb was that not only did the engine not have enough power, but it seemed to have been designed to take-off and land on pitching, heaving ships which apparently didn't go too well.  That and they were terribly top-heavy, even if they had been on ship they likely would have toppled over.  

There were only two prototypes built, one in California and the other here in Florida.

Clever idea, but probably not well thought out.

Tomorrow we'll go inside for a look around.