Kermit's Blog

Change yourself . . . and you change the World!

Monthly Archives: March 2010

100th Year Anniversary of first Commercial Aviation Flight!

On January 1st, 2010 I made the announcement that Fantasy of Flight will build a reproduction of the Benoist flying boat which made the first ever commercial flight on January 1st, 1914.  It was a two person aircraft that pilot Tony Jannus flew from St. Petersburg across the Bay to Tampa.  The flight was flown at between 15 and 50 feet and took twenty-three minutes.  After some fanfare, he flew back!  Prior to the flight there was an auction and the Mayor of St. Petersburg bid $400 for the honor of being the first ever commercial passenger.  The later normal fare was $5 and, in the first year of operation, they made about 1200 successful flights!

While several other reenactments have been made over the years with different airplanes, our intent is to build an airplane as accurate as possible, including using a six-cylinder Roberts 2-cycle engine, which we intend to build as well!  Since Fantasy of Flight is all about pushing boundaries, this was a great opportunity for myself and the Aircraft Department to push ours!

Kermit and Tony Jannus in Benoist replica at St. Pete Museum

75 hp Roberts 2-Cycle Engine

Currently, we are doing research on the aircraft and engine and hope to begin construction sometime next year.  We hope to have the airplane ready for test-flights by the summer of 2013. Fortunately, we have a lake on site where we can safely begin testing and tweaking.  I thought it was interesting the original flight was covered on the front page of the St. Pete Times and our announcement was as well . . . 96 years later!

Kermit

Benny to join Racing Friends at Fantasy of Flight!

I recently added a new character to the list of real airplanes kids can see when they visit Fantasy of Flight.  It’s a replica of the Benny Howard airplane “IKE” featured in my illustrated children’s book, “All of Life is a School.” I acquired it from Kim Kovach who faithfully built it up to original standards after having the opportunity to measure the real one, which still exists.

One deviation from the original is that it’s powered by a 4-cylinder Menasco engine instead of the very rare, and impossible to find, 6-cylinder version used on the original.  The only other modification was to continue the width of the fuselage at the instrument panel (18″) back to the seat back.  The original airplane was actually 15″ at the shoulders!  I went up to see if I could even fit in it before I purchased it and just barely fit!

“Benny” is safely stored in a hangar in Michigan with plans are to truck it down and put it on display sometime this June!  This will bring the number of on-site characters from the book to seven out of ten.  Had I known I would be collecting them all in the long run, I would not have written so many into the book!

Kermit

3rd Annual Roar ‘n Soar!

Look Ma! No Steering!

We had a great Roar n’ Soar event in November with boats, model airplanes, cars, and airplanes participating.  I was supposed to fly fly five airplanes during the day beginning with a talk about each one but it was a bit on the windy side.  When I went to fly the Duck, I decided it was too windy and got caught not being about to turn it around on the runway and the above picture was the result.

Most of the side area on the Duck is behind the main wheels so it is not happy unless it’s headed into the wind.  Kind of like a weather vane.  Even though the brakes are good, when I added power, the tail came up and I found myself briefly kissing the hull on the ground!

Would you believe I was taking a bow?

Kermit

Last Big Splash!

Duck on Target

We had a successful 1st Annual Last Big Splash last September with about 35 seaplanes in attendance.  Many showed up the evening before for a BBQ on the shores of Lake Agnes.  Later we watched a WWII film  called “Coastal Command” about Sunderlands on a big screen hung on the side of our Sunderland down by the lake.  It was a “big” hit!

The next day we had a number of seaplanes enter the competition and I faired pretty well with the Grumman Duck.  The Duck is almost impossible to see out of because of the big engine and lower wings and I totally lucked out in the spot-landing competition.  Having no idea where the two spot landing buoys were I just lined up, cut the power, and floated as long as I could.  If you land before the buoy line you are disqualified, which I was not.  As you can see by the above picture I was darned close!  I touched down just after the two buoys marking the target line, one of which is behind the tail spray!  A Husky on floats (with great visibility by the way) beat me.

Luck was not with me during the bomb drop contest and, mainly because of the visibility, I failed miserably.  The “bombs” (melons) did luckily land in the lake!  But in the short take-off competition I surprised myself and my competitor by getting off the water first and beating out a 450hp Dehavilland Beaver on floats!  In retrospect, had I created a category for seaplanes over 1000 hp, I could have won everything in my class!

Kermit

World Paintball Championships!

We got the chance to host the World Paintball Championships last fall and it was a great success!  They had been holding their event and the Wide World of Sports complex at Walt Disney World but decided Fantasy of Flight was a better venue!  We are about to sign a 3-year contract with them to continue.  What a coup!

Our good friend, icon, and supporter, G. Willie, got in on the action to try his hand at the sport but didn’t fair so well with the more seasoned veterans.  All in all, it was fun to watch and we look forward to seeing them back in the future.

Kermit

Stayhealthy!

I had an opportunity to check up on an investment I’ve been involved in for a number of years called Stayhealthy.  It has created state of the art devices to help you stay healthy including a pager size device that you can wear to help determine your body metabolism and a simple device to measure body fat.  This inexpensive device is on par with machines that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Other devices the company produces are kiosks where people can check different health related things in like shopping malls combined with mall advertising.  I took the opportunity to visit the Spring Hill Mall outside of Chicago to not only check out one of the kiosk locations but to sell some Gee Bee Books as well!  The products are gaining popularity and I sold out of all the books I brought!

Nice Advertising Example on Kiosk!

One of the most exciting things is a new way to measure health that will replace the BMI (body mass index), which is woefully out of date.  This is the chart you’ve probably seen at your doctors office that uses height, weight and age to somehow determine your health.  On the BMI index, I’m almost considered fat!  Amazing.  I just saw on the news President Obama just had a physical and was told the same thing!  Anyway, major companies are partnering with us and, if successful, it will allow me to expand Fantasy of Flight.  Check it out at http://www.stayhealthy.com.

Kermit

Galapagos Trip!

Teresa, Katie and I headed down to the equator for a trip to the Galapagos last summer and had a great time.  I had actually been once before in the seventies when tourism first opened up and was on the first boat ever to give tours.  The government of Ecuador has done a great job leaving everything natural and the birds and animals still aren’t bothered in the least bit by human visitors.

Katie checking out a Galapagos Tortoise in the wild

We got a chance to see the tortoises, fur seals, all sorts of birds, land and marine iguanas, and lots of flora and fauna.  Katie did her first ocean snorkeling and did a great job, even when an eight foot shark swam under us!  She loved swimming with the fur seals.  I bought a T-shirt down there with a statement by Charles Darwin that totally ties in with how I see life and the Fantasy of Flight concept -

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change!”

If there is one thing I’ve learned in life . . . the only thing consistent in it is change!

Kermit "getting into" the Galapagos experience!

In the long run, the Fantasy of Flight concept is all about taking a step beyond what you perceive yourself to be.  I’m not sure I’ve evolved much but we’ve all got to start somewhere!  In my case, I suppose it’s from the ground up!

Kermit

Way Behind on Blog Posts!

I am about six months behind on my blog posts because there has been so much going on and I’ve been traveling so much!  I will begin with a cool shot I took several years ago of the sun rising by the Fantasy of Flight Water Tower.

I get to see the sunrise over my dream every day and during the summer rainy months it is not uncommon in the evening to see a huge rainbow going from one end of the Fantasy of Flight property to the other!

Kermit