One of the spots we visited on our recent visit to Florida was the Florida Air Museum, located at the Lakeland-Linder International Airport in Lakeland. Airplane buffs will recognize ‘LAL’ as the home of the annual Sun-N-Fun Aerospace Expo.
I was a little disappointed in the museum given the status of Sun-N-Fun in the aviation world, but to be fair they are in the process of a major facilities upgrade which should provide a lot more exhibit space and room for more aircraft. Plus, we have visited some awesome aviation museums over the last few years, in particular the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon. How can you compare seeing photographs of Howard Hughes to actually standing inside the Spruce Goose? 😉
It was a nice day and a good place to spend a little time. And there are definitely a few one-of-a-kind aircraft housed here, including the Lockheed XVF-1 which was designed to be a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle long before Space-X figured out how to re-land rockets. I can only imagine trying to set that thing down on its tail!
Great series, Tom. Do you have a pilot license or is that something on your bucket list? I can only imagine the pilots who would venture to be the first to try these aircraft. I’m too much of a land lubber.
I earned my Private license about 30 years ago when we still lived in Ohio. But it was expensive, took a lot of time and the kids were getting into baseball, soccer and scouts and they were my priority. I toyed with the idea of trying to make a career out of it but got a bit of a late start and needed to stay gainfully employed. 😉 It’s one of those things I’m proud I did but am okay with leaving the piloting to the professionals. 😉