Safety barriers to protect the pilots and the pit area make a lot of sense. Look for this to become standard at all jet events. The near perfect weather offered lots of air time and the flight line was usually this busy for 4 days.

New York City jet fliers Glenn Robinson and Leo DeRosa enjoyed a break from the northern weather with their wives and some jet model airplanes. The Bandit in the foreground is featured in BVM's brochure. It has since been polished with #2500 grit paper and compounded to a perfect glass like finish. Glenn flies it with enthusiasm.

Formerly a Navy F-14 Tomcat pilot, now an American Airlines pilot and for fun, Paul Bageman is a BVM Bandit pilot. He came from San Diego to enjoy Florida Jets.

Paul will soon be applying his skills to a Blue Angel Phantom. As a BVM rep he can help you with your BVM project if you live in the southern California area.

The checker patterns on Trae Miller's Maverick are masked and painted. This very visible BVM .91/VIOFAN powered Mav was flown many times during the event signalling that ducted fans are still alive and well at the big events.

Certainly this eagle Bandit is the most artistic effort yet. This is what a long Canadian winter yielded from Dean Wichmann.

This camera man just couldn't do it justice - perhaps Rich Uravitch from M.A.N. did - look for it in an upcoming article on FL Jets 2000.

The feather pattern progresses from the light to dark - that's the photo challenge. Check the bottom for the RAM's head representing the power source.

Several thousand rivets along with the stars and numbers by ProMark really accent this Hungarian Camo painted MiG-15 by Mitch Weiss. Mitch used a small HVLP spray gun (brand name "Sharpe") to accomplish the soft edge camo then weathered it with powdered charcoal (available at an art supply store) - very nice technique. Mitch and his MiG experienced a perfect first flight at Florida Jets 2000. Power is provided by an AMT Mercury using autostart. For more on Mitch and his MiG, go to the MiG-15 page in the Hot Shots section. His next project is an Olympus powered BVM Rafale B-O1. The single engine version will be available this summer.

ACRO-JET
Jet Freestyle

The idea for this event was conceived less than one month prior to Florida Jets so the invited pilots had little time to prepare and practice. However, pilots at this skill level can be counted on to enlighten and entertain us even with minimum notice.
Each presented a routine of their own design (freestyle), some to music and smoke, that exemplified their flying techniques and their model's flight envelope.
The four competitor's and 3 judges headed up by Don Lowe completed this first of its kind demonstration in about 40 minutes, minimizing any flight time loss by others. As it happened, the wind and rain descended on the field for that period of time such that it would have grounded normal operations anyway. The Acro-Jet pilots flew in some really tough conditions - true grit!
Their efforts were rewarded at the Saturday evening banquet with engraved medalions and some cash. BVM conceived and sponsored this first demonstration event. It was made possible by the generosity of time of the Florida Jets organization and Don Lowe and his fellow judges Billy Gerod and Al Tuttle.
It is now up to the Acro-Jet pilots who want to compete to join together to refine the event - perhaps work with prop pattern flyers to include jets in some of their events.
Jet events as we know them are for jet sport flyers to enjoy in a non competitive atmosphere but most guys would like to see the "best of the best" perform at some half time shows.

Here are the results:

2nd place - Lewis Patton
3rd place - Rob Lynch
4th place - Steve Elias