Matt Chapman and Quique Somenzini at Sun n Fun

[Matt Colan]

I was at Sun n Fun Friday night into Saturday.  While there, a couple of my friends got us into the airshow performer hangar, and the performer tent since they were working for a couple of the airshow pilots. Got to meet a few of the guys out there flying and have learned of and taken part in an inside joke between two of them (Matt Younkin and Kyle Franklin). I also got some pictures of the original batmobile and batcopter from the 1960s TV show!!

During the airshow on Saturday, Matt chapman and Quique Somenzini did a first of a kind airshow. Formation aerobatics with a full size and RC size airplane.  I got a video of it and posted it on YouTube last night:



I'm going to spend some time today going through the pictures I took, cleaning them up a little bit and ill post some of the good ones on here.

[Dan Bregar]

Actually not the first time this has been done.  I saw Frank Noll do it much better with Matt Chapman at the 2007 Joe Nall. And I believe it has been done a few times since then. For what it's worth. 

[Matt Colan]

Actually not the first time this has been done.  I saw Frank Noll do it much better with Matt Chapman at the 2007 Joe Nall. And I believe it has been done a few times since then. For what it's worth. 

Guess the announcer can't be trusted then...He did say the original Batmobile was based off a 61 Ford Galaxy. As far as I know, it was based off a Lincoln.

[Paul Taylor]

Way Kewl Matt !

Thanks for sharing.

[Mike Lauerman]

The original Batmobile was built from the 1955 Lincoln Futura, a Ford Motor Co. concept car, featured at the Detroit Motorama.

Interesting then, as ex Motorama cars were never saved, most of them were scrapped!

Imagine driving up to the flying field in a fururistic concept car and pulling out a C/L Mars Space Ship...or similar...

[Matt Colan]

Here's some of the 80 pictures I took at Sun 'n Fun.  Definitely planning on going again next year, but will plan things out better than we did this year. It was like a Chinese fire drill all of Friday being sneaked around and trying to get in and meeting up with who was there.

Pic1: What you see outside the tent when you wake up in the morning
Pic2: The Batmobile with the batcopter right behind it. Definitely a treat to be able to see
Pic3: Kyle Franklin's new airplane called Dracula. The engine in it has 500hp fuel injected and supercharged. Vne on that airplane doesn't exist because it won't be able to get that fast, and the G rating on it is +/-15g's.

[Matt Colan]

Here's some more pictures:

Pic1: Team Tiger airshows. Yak 55's paint beautifully!
Pic2: John Mohr's Stearman.  My good friend works for him and thanks to him, we got special access during the entire airshow
Pic3: An SB2C Helldiver starting up
Pic4: An absolutely beautifully restored Corsair!

[Matt Colan]

Here's the last few pictures:

Pic1: A brand new Extreme Decathlon for sale
Pic2: P-51 on a low high speed pass
Pic3: Half of the black diamond jet team in tight formation

[Jeff Traxler]

Matt,
    What's the ticket on that pretty Decathlon??Always wanted one of these when I grow up.

[Perry Rose]

Watching the first minute of the video I thought Q. needed more tip weight.

[Matt Colan]

Matt,
    What's the ticket on that pretty Decathlon??Always wanted one of these when I grow up.

Very cheap! Only $200,000.

Pocket change 

[Serge_Krauss]

Matt-

Excellent camera work and audio. Thanks much!

Yes, I remember the Lincoln Futura - even had a plastic model of it. We kids expected this to be how cars would look, and some of that came to pass for a little while, different parts in different makes too. I see that QQ was flying a bipe, as he did the last time he won the R/C WC.

SK

[Steve Helmick]

Who?  Steve

[MarcusCordeiro]

Matt

Thanks for the batmobile pic...
I loved that show, and collect die cast and plastic kits of it.
It seems that college life has been much more than studying hard...

Marcus

[Matt Colan]

Matt

Thanks for the batmobile pic...
I loved that show, and collect die cast and plastic kits of it.
It seems that college life has been much more than studying hard...

Marcus

Studying? What's studying?! 

This semester I've had about as much homework as I did during my senior year of high school, which is definitely not much!