The Cavalry in Hawaiian shirts: Lakeland Aero Club aids pilots on Sun 'n Fun fields

LAKELAND — Donning bright Hawaiian print shirts and wide-brimmed straw hats, the Lakeland Aero Club has played a critical supporting role to Sun 'n Fun this year.

The Lakeland Aero Club pilots have been dubbed "The Cavalry," riding across more than 200 acres on electric powered golf carts to provide community aid to other pilots in need. Roughly 10 members have been on site since April 6, providing hands-on labor needed to help make the expo run smoothly.

"We get to see planes come in and land every day, but it's not every day you get to walk down the runway," LAC pilot Steven Tellmann, 18, said.

Mike Zidziunas, president of the Lakeland Aero Club, said this is the first time Lakeland Aero Club students who are aspiring pilots are helping out in airport operations. There's been a need for strong, able-bodied volunteers to do manual labor tasks.

It started the week before Sun 'n Fun, when he took a group students were taken out to drive fence poles and put up the bright orange fencing to keep crowds from crossing onto the runway.

During the expo, Tellmann has been leading a group of 10 students who are focused on earning their pilot licenses or new-found pilots helping with airport operations. The group has been working to help push small, mostly single-engine aircraft into tail-to-tail parking formations.

"In the past, the planes were basically all parked facing the same direction wing tip to wing tip," Nick Poucher, 25, said. "We spin them around so they are wing tip to tail, and you get a third more parking space that way."

Poucher said many of the single-engine aircraft carefully walked and pushed into place can weigh from 800 pounds to a couple thousand pounds. They can't be driven into place given that wing tips and propellers are sometimes only a few feet, or inches, apart.

It's been an essential part of preserving space at Sun 'n Fun to accommodate more planes, according to Zidziunas.

Quest Hipps, 16, said working out on the airfield has provided many of the students with a new perspective.

"It's the first time I got to see most of the areas in the show, as normally I'm here in the hangar," he said. "It actually allows me to see more of the expo."

Tellmann said he had the opportunity to ride in an golf cart with airport operation staff, who can actively explain how the airport's approach and lighting works and operate in real time.

"It helps me understand more as a pilot," he said.

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Zidziunas said that while these may seem like "inglorious" tasks, the students have asked to go back and do more. The Cavalry has helped paint parking strips, set up tents and "anything else" that air operations has asked, Tellmann said.

"There's something about putting in a hard day's work that is rewarding," said Capt. Eric Washburn, chief pilot for Frontier Airlines who is an ACE board member. "The kids are learning hard work, they haven't really been challenged before and now they are being asked to make themselves worthwhile. In the process, they are thriving."

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland Aero Club, or 'Cavalry,' aids pilots on Sun 'n Fun fields