It started with rain and was quickly renamed Mud'nFun by the first 2008 pioneers. It ended with a cold front, but in the middle somewhere was a fantastic opening to another airshow season. Friday was possibly the best day with widely scattered cumulous and bearable temperatures.

Our new FlightCentral.net T-shirts were a huge hit. With the "Watch For Low Flying Aircraft" sign on the back, we had lines of people grabbing them up. We gave away over 200 shirts. The only stipulation was that people had to put them on, right there on the spot.

We had lots of takers and the shirts could be seen all over the Sun'nFun grounds. These are heavy weight 100% cotton shirts with pockets. Click here to order one for yourself. They are just $14.95 with free shipping.

Diamond's new D-Jet, soon to be delivered, was a "must-see". It sports a surprisingly roomy cabin with all the luxuries and a world class panel. This one could be a big hit in the new small jet market. To give you an idea of the space, I shot this picture from the back seat with nothing to obstruct the view.

New light sport aircraft seemed to dominate the exhibitors' areas and new glass panel options seemed to be everywhere. Steam gages are officially dead - we're just waiting on the burial.

Pre-airshow flying on Friday was offered up by Lee Lauderback's Crazy Horse among others. A second P-51 that I believe was Mad Max flew formation with Lee, but I failed to get a close enough look to confirm it. Dan Gryder's airshow staple DC-3 watched quietly from the ground, it's gray pug nose noticeable above the crowded airplanes facing the runway.

The official airshow cranked up at 14:00 local with the sound of six F-16 Falcons blasting off from LAL's runway 27. Although a practice for Saturday and Sunday's scheduled shows, they gave an awesome full dress rehearsal. My wife, she gets it. After one high speed low pass, pulled quickly into the vertical she remarked, "You know those guys are getting some serious wood!" Ah, bless her heart.

Following the Thunderbirds, all the national favorites in acro were there for some beautiful (and some insane) demonstrations. Patty Wagstaff, Nickolay Timofeev, Kyle Franklin, Matt Younkin, and David Martin flew inspired routines that were a thrill to watch. Steve Oliver put his amped-up Chipmunk through paces I thought weren't possible from the little machine. No matter how good his flying was, it was difficult to ignore his announcer and dumb choice of music. Clearly one routine that would have been better without the narration. Russian champion Nickolay Timofeev was the opposite end of that spectrum. In his Sukhoi SU-26, he flew some of  the most precise maneuvers of the show to the background of sparse narration over the instrumental portion of Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond. But the prize for true craziness would have to go to Skip Stewart. His extremely low-level Pitts routine was just unbelievable. He could have have flown the whole thing over a football field, never crossing the goal posts (well, almost).

Possibly the biggest surprise was Matt Younkin's custom Beech 18. In a very Hooveresque fashion he put the lumbering twin through a full series of aerobatic maneuvers. This was truly an amazing routine.
              
              

The airshow ended with a series of loud strafing passes by a Marine Corps F-18. Wow! The Hornet is just so loud, especially in afterburn. It makes the F-16 sound quiet in comparison. An F4U Corsair joined the Hornet for a Heritage Flight to close out the performance. A simply wonderful end to a gorgeous Florida afternoon.

Next up - Oshkosh! See you there.