Come and celebrate
with us at this special First Saturday
Did you know that LoPresti has moved it's
headquarters from Vero Beach to Sebastian Florida? That's
right, after more than 20 years, LoPresti Aviation's headquarters
has a new home. We have a new engineering
facility and new offices on the east side of the Sebastian
airport. These are state of the art buildings and the
engineering facility is the first "green" hangar built in
Florida. These new buildings offer all of the important
amenities for key buildings in Florida.
1. Wind rated to survive
hurricane forces,
2. Underground utilities,
3. High speed internet,
4. Back up generator power.
How do we like our new airport home?
We LOVE IT. This is a real "Pilot Friendly" airport.
We have low fuel prices, a courtesy car for quick trips.
It's like living at a resort. We have golf, skydiving,
kayaking, fishing all available from the airport. If you
are looking for a place to fly to to have fun, I highly
recommend Sebastian airport. But there is more here than
just pilot friendliness. The local town is full of
friendly "fishing village" citizens. Everywhere you go
there are friendly people.
Well it’s that time of the year, convention time for both
NBAA and AOPA. With the short days of fall, I decided I would
start by making a simple trip for a luncheon meeting a two-day
affair.
I flew into Evergreen, AL. It was four days until their EAA
regional Fly-In, which I hoped to attend on my way back to TX. A
picturesque airport set atop a hill in the midst of rolling
green forest, Evergreen is the type of airport we all want to
fly out of. As I taxied to the ramp with roving eyes, I spotted
their gate guard airplanes. WOW, an F4J Fury and a T-28 in Navy
markings, with a T-34C sitting on the ramp. The Navy uses the
airport as a bounce field. That is to say, the students from
Pensacola fly up here to practice landings. There are many such
fields in this area that the Navy students use.
Many
years ago, as I would fly through this area in the Mustang or
Bearcat, I would usually get jumped by a T-28 or even T2 Buckeye
– oh what fantastic, exhilarating fun. I keep hoping a T-34C
will have a go at me in the Fury, but alas no such luck—YET!
Yes, a few have looked, even started a pass but the second I
turned into them and showed the Fury’s claws, they broke it off.
I guess the bright yellow scared them, hahahaha. Taxing up to
the pumps I was greeted by Bill, the Airport Manager. With a
smile he said, “you can’t miss this one can you. Hi, I’m Bill,
the Airport Manager. Fill her up?” Let’s see, 503 KT miles from
Dallas to Evergreen (not counting the rolls and the fact that I
never fly a straight line), 2.6 HRS and 24.5 GALS of 100-LL, OH
YEA ANYONE CAN LIVE WITH THAT. We put the Fury in the hangar for
the night and went into his office where, along with several
other pilots, we talked airplanes. Later, he took me to the
motel and then picked me up in the morning. The price for the
hangar and taxi service was an autographed picture for the
office wall. I gave them several. You know, there are no better
people than aviation folks, just the best. Bill, I shall return.
Orlando, FL, NBAA is always an exciting event with the latest
and greatest of the aviation world. You never know who you’ll
see and it’s always a treat to see old friends like Bob Hoover,
Clay Lacy, Tom Poberezny, Jack Pelton, Harrison Ford and many
others. You know, it makes you realize you have been around for
a while, hahahaha. The Fury had a prime spot; everyone had to
walk past it as you entered the display area. Thank you, Joe
Hart. The Fury production mock up looked great sitting under its
red tent. It drew a lot of attention. The mock up shows the
additional 4-inch width, besides the Intuition iPOD and camera
systems. I can’t believe how much attention the iPOD draws.
Everyone comments, “WOW it even has an iPOD.” They continue the
WOW comments when they learn that it is also a “black box”, plus
satellite radio, TV and weather. One of the neat features is
that it is also an electronic logbook for the pilot and
airplane. Yes, I get a lot of questions about the availability
of the Intuition System for their personal aircraft and the
company’s jets. We do have plans to make it a LoPresti product
for all airplanes. I just have to have my tunes to listen to
flying cross-country. Earle Boyter, who handles the Fury sales,
was busy showing the Fury mock-up and answering questions. My
job, you ask? Well, it was to stand by the Fury and look pretty,
hahahahaha. I did answer a lot of questions, sign pictures and
have my picture taken with some very nice ladies.
Tampa, FL, AOPA, like NBAA, draws a lot of aviation people.
The Fury, Earle Boyter and I were busy again, answering
questions and telling the Fury’s story. Like Sun-N-Fun, OSH, and
NBAA, we were too busy to leave our post and see the rest of the
airplane displays or booths at the convention center. Again the
Fury had a prime display location thanks to Woody and Toni
Mensching.
You
couldn’t miss the bright yellow Fury or the red mock up and
LoPresti tent. They had over 1,000 fly-in aircraft to the
airport for the AOPA Summit; it’s starting to look like OSH. I
have to say that the location, on Tampa Bay, next to the marina
with all the sailboats and fantastic weather was a movie
setting. But BAM, before you know it, it’s all over. I was
pleasantly surprised to find that my flight back to Dallas was
blessed with super tail winds the entire trip. I had ground
speeds over western FL, AL, MS, LA and into TX of 240 + knots.
My fuel burn was APX 37 Gals. You couldn’t drive from Tampa to
Dallas on that amount of fuel. I was on the bottom side of a big
high-pressure area and the topside of a big low-pressure area,
the hurricane that was in the Gulf of Mexico. I never saw a
cloud but the next day I would have been hard pressed to fly the
same route, thank you GOD.
The last event for this blog was my display and talk at Pecan
Plantation, TX. LoPresti was asked to make a presentation about
LoPresti, its history and products. Pecan is a fly-in community
southwest of FT. Worth, TX, that has it all. Built in an old
pecan grove, there are nuts everywhere, golf nuts, horse nuts,
boating nuts and plane nuts. The whole place is nuts besides the
pecans. The community has sections for golf, horses, boats and
airplanes. The hard surface runway is surrounded by beautiful
homes with hangars. There is something neat about seeing a
Bonanza taxiing down a street. Yep, I want to live there. Upon
arriving on Friday afternoon I was greeted by Doug Crumrine, who
offered his hangar for the Fury. It didn’t look like a hangar
but an addition to his home. The Fury fit perfectly next to his
beautiful RV-8 and other toys. That night an old friend and ex-USAF
Thunderbird, Mack Angel, hosted a cocktail party. Mack and I
flew shows together in the 70’s; he retired as the head of the
flight dept/chief pilot of Frito-Lay, Pizza Hut, PepsiCo; hahaha,
a bunch of companies in one. Earle Boyter and Marshall Puckett
were with me and quite impressed with Mack’s history and
memorabilia on display in his house. Saturday we were greeted
with a full hangar of people. The Fury was a big hit. It kept
Earle and I busy with questions as Marshall set everything up
for the talk. Now as usual, they had an agenda of an hour and a
half – hahahahahahahaha. It never fails. We used two and a half
hours. No one wanted to stop and I was asked to tell this story
or that one, so the catered lunch had to wait. Marshall made a
great presentation on the LoPresti products including the Boom
Beams, Speedcoat, Knott Wax, and the company. Earle talked about
how to purchase a Fury, the benefits and options and, again, I
just looked pretty. I flew home; 30 minutes back to McKinney,
TX, that afternoon. Yes, you know I played. The Fury and I
danced all the way home. I just wish I had the words to describe
flying the Fury. It’s what every pilot wants in his airplane.
Thank you, Roy LoPresti. Your passionate vision of the perfect
airplane fits mine to a T.
"The
easiest, slickest, most popular modifications
won't ever get
more affordable then this!
Make this your Christmas present to yourself.
Save Fuel with
LoPresti Mods, and fly more.
Valid through December 31."
Special pricing on Spats, Splitters, Slippers,
HubbaHubbas, and Flap Gap Seals. It's like having a permanent
5-10 tail wind. Look at our customers results:
Before
getting into the report, let me say that I am not affiliated
with LoPresti. My comments and findings are based on the
installation of a set of LoPresti SpeedMerchants
SpeedSpats
(main landing gear fairings) on my personal aircraft, a 1974
Arrow-II. There is nothing special about this Arrow. For those
who want to compare performance figures to their own Arrow, mine
has a high-time engine and it has a 3-blade Hartzell propeller.
Why LoPresti Speed Spats? The answer arrived from a number of
reasons that fit me (but perhaps will not fit others). First,
the Arrow fits our family lifestyle the best and I have no
interest in purchasing another aircraft with faster inherent
speed at this time. That being said, I wanted a little faster
cruise performance – and that pointed me in the direction of
speed modifications for the Arrow. LoPresti happens to be
located at my airport home base of Sebastian, FL (they just
relocated from Vero Beach) – which caused me to favor their
products versus others on the market.
Read More
Here is the deal:
Buy One, Get One 1/2 off (of equal or lesser value)
Buy Two, Get Third one FREE!!!
"LoPresti First Saturday is a Grand Opening Celebration
featuring J.W. 'Corkey' Fornof speaking about his life in the
movie industry as a Hollywood Aerial Stunt Pilot, Camera Man,
Aerial Coordinator and an Aerial Director. The day will
also include a special LoPrestiFury Air Show. "
Hot
Air Balloon Rides - Skydiving - Antique Cars -
Aircraft Static Displays - Vendor Displays -
Door Prizes - Raffles - Discounts
(Special Weekend Flyaway Rates for Hotels, Avgas,
Skydiving, Kayaking and Fishing - Call for Reservations).
This will be a
celebration the likes of which Sebastian has never seen.
No one knows more
about GA in movies than J.W. "Corkey" Fornof. Corkey
literally wrote the FAA book on film production and is a
Hollywood Aerial Stunt Pilot, Camera Man, Aerial Coordinator and
an Aerial Director. He has doubled for Catherine
Zeta-Jones too, (at least from a thousand feet).
IMDB link
If
you remember the classic movie scene
in Octopussy, where James Bond (aka Roger
Moore) flys a BD5 jet through a hanger sideways,
then you are already familiar with the work of "Corkey" Fornof,
talented stunt pilot, aerial coordinator and director. "Corkey"
Fornof is the master of aviation movie action.
"Corkey's" list of feature movie stunts includes Harrison Ford's
6 Days/7 Nights, John Travolta's Face Off, Tom Cruise's Mission
Impossible II, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park and Robert
Redford and Demi Moore's Indecent Proposal. "Corkey" is a
member of the Screen Actors Guild, the Motion Picture Pilots
Association, and holds a current Motion Picture/Television
Flight Operations Manual for the FAA. He's been spotted in
over 100 commercials and on MTV.
James
Bond's stand-in pilot, J.W. "Corkey" Fornof, will be sporting
his latest airplane,
the LoPrestiFury.
"Corkey"
is an Alumni of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Corkey flew with his father, J.W. "Bill" Fornof, in a
world famous two ship air show with matching bronze Bearcats.
Their air show business was based in Houma flying the T6,
Mustang and his favorite war bird the Bearcat.
. "The
LoPrestiFury flys like a little fighter. It does
everything my Mustang would do except 500 kts," says Corkey.
"This is one sweet ride. Roy LoPresti was right on when he
designed this plane. The Fury is perfect for aerobatics or
cross country flying".
For the
past year, "Corkey" has been touring the country with the
LoPresti Fury. "Corkey" is the perfect
pilot/ambassador for this winged Ferrari-like sportster.
If you're going to show off a fast, sexy, high performance
aircraft, it helps to have a secret agent as your pilot.
The Fury possesses the thrilling excitement of air combat or an
aerobatic WWII fighter. It's precision and
perfection allows smooth rolls and figure 8s. One can
glide cross-country in this leather-seated beauty listening to
tunes of your choice through the Bluetooth Headset and Intuitiontm
Ipod system.
Want even more? Stay
the day or the weekend in Sebastian
Link
PLEASE
RSVP
USING THE LINK BELOW.
LoPresti
Facility on the East Ramp of X26
Hangar opens at 9:00 am with Coffee and Pancakes Donations benefit: "'Roseland Ecumenical Food Pantry". Tech Talk starts at 10:00am
You
couldn’t miss the bright yellow Fury or the red mock up and
LoPresti tent. They had over 1,000 fly-in aircraft to the
airport for the AOPA Summit; it’s starting to look like OSH. I
have to say that the location, on Tampa Bay, next to the marina
with all the sailboats and fantastic weather was a movie
setting. But BAM, before you know it, it’s all over. I was
pleasantly surprised to find that my flight back to Dallas was
blessed with super tail winds the entire trip. I had ground
speeds over western FL, AL, MS, LA and into TX of 240 + knots.
My fuel burn was APX 37 Gals. You couldn’t drive from Tampa to
Dallas on that amount of fuel. I was on the bottom side of a big
high-pressure area and the topside of a big low-pressure area,
the hurricane that was in the Gulf of Mexico. I never saw a
cloud but the next day I would have been hard pressed to fly the
same route, thank you GOD.
Before
getting into the report, let me say that I am not affiliated
with LoPresti. My comments and findings are based on the
installation of a set of LoPresti SpeedMerchants
Hot
Air Balloon Rides - Skydiving - Antique Cars - 
"Corkey"
is an Alumni of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Corkey flew with his father, J.W. "Bill" Fornof, in a
world famous two ship air show with matching bronze Bearcats.
Their air show business was based in Houma flying the T6,
Mustang and his favorite war bird the Bearcat. 
. "The
LoPrestiFury flys like a little fighter. It does
everything my Mustang would do except 500 kts," says Corkey.
"This is one sweet ride. Roy LoPresti was right on when he
designed this plane. The Fury is perfect for aerobatics or
cross country flying". 
