It's been a long haul... but we're in the home stretch of our stories on the problems and concerns we see in the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In. This time, though, we're going to talk about matters close to our heart... the battle we have faced in trying to tell it like it is about the Lakeland flight fest and the way that Sun 'n Fun has fought us at every turn. In one of the lowest blows we've ever seen in the sport and general aviation community; one outspoken guy, who has fought long and hard for the safety and well-being of others, was targeted by the very organization that he saw as part of the problems he was trying to solve. ANN's Editor-In-Chief, Jim Campbell, was targeted by Sun 'n Fun for ridicule, a restriction of his first Amendment Rights, and was the target of what has come to be seen, far and wide, as an atrocious abuse of power by a chosen, arrogant, few trying to cover their tracks. The silly part of all this, is that if they hadn't spent so much time trying to shut him up, we doubt they'd have come under such scrutiny... go figure.

ANN Journalist Continues Fight Against Bizarre Ban

The Sun 'n Fun Fly-In, held each April at the publicly-funded Lakeland-Linder Regional Airport (Lakeland, FL), is continuing to ban aviation journalist, Aero-News Network's Editor-in-Chief Jim Campbell from the property, in apparent violation of federal law.

It's long past time they stopped doing this.

Why Jim Campbell Was Banned From Sun 'n Fun:

It started over ten years ago, when Jim Campbell (himself a former world ultralight record-holder) and the President of the US Ultralight Association, John Ballantyne, were watching the lightplane activities at Sun 'n Fun. They noticed dangerous and illegal activity: unlicensed and unqualified pilots were giving rides to passengers in unregistered, illegal flying machines -- for money.

Some of the flying wasn't very good, either -- and a lot of it took place over busy parking lots, where thousands of show-goers had to walk.

Campbell and Ballantyne complained to (then) Fly-In Director William Henderson of the hazards and illegalities they had seen, and were roundly rebuffed and told to mind their own business--rudely.

As years went by, Campbell, in person and in print [Campbell was the publisher/editor of US Aviator magazine], continued to try and convince Sun ‘n Fun to pay more attention to the safety and well-being of their visitors. Year by year, the situation grew tenser, and Campbell’s efforts drew more criticism from Fly-In officials. Dozens of hazards were documented and reported. Eventually, several members of the Fly-In directly threatened him with ouster unless his editorial efforts were kinder and less-critical.

The organization's criticism turned to harassment. Campbell was threatened and assaulted by Sun 'n Fun staff and organizers; and his business was interfered with on a number of occasions, including verified accounts of having his staff bothered, and even threatened, by several individuals who run the Fly-In.

Campbell (right) proved to be a magnet for those (many) vendors and attendees who were wronged by the airshow management, as well, and his files grew. The Fly-In turned a deaf ear to many complaints about some vendors who cheated their customers or offered unsafe products.

Sun 'n Fun management often took the side of the offending vendors, even to the point of using the Fly-In's security personnel to keep legitimate subpoenas from being served at the show (although the interference was selective -- the show didn't interfere with servers' access to out-of-favor vendors).

Several years ago, just minutes after (then) Fly-in Director William Henderson ran Campbell down with a golf cart, Fly-In President William Eickoff approached Campbell with members of the Lakeland Police Department and ordered him off the property. He has been banned ever since from the Fly-In and the nearby Federally-funded FAA building.

Some of Campbell's warnings could have saved lives.

In April of 2001, Russell Legare, a visiting pilot, was giving a Sun 'n Fun volunteer's grandson a ride (a condition of getting a parking space at the crowded show, ANN reporters were told) when the man, admittedly unfamiliar with procedures, was waved into position by Sun 'n Fun officials at the lightplane area and sent to take off -- with the wind behind him.

His airplane failed to get airborne, and crashed into a creekbed that crossed the end of the runway. He was killed; the grandson received critical injuries. ANN reporters learned that the Sun 'n Fun official who was running the air operations knew, from a professional weather station set up at his area and numerous pilot complaints, as well as the plainly-visible wind flags at the field, that he was foolishly sending aircraft off (and landing) downwind, but didn't want to change the direction of the pattern -- he was rushed.

The next day, with that same Sun 'n Fun official in charge, at the same area, ultralights and other small aircraft were still taking off and landing downwind -- a very dangerous practice. Just days before the accident, Campbell published warnings of numerous known hazards at the Fly-In... and literally predicted the tragedy that was about to take place.

A year later; a mid-air took the life of Pilot Jerry Morrison and severely injured Pilot Steve Pierce... after years of repeated warnings from Campbell that the arrival and departure procedures at Lakeland needed serious updating and modification.

It's a safety thing...

Campbell asserts that he has been singled out, because of his efforts to expose unsafe and/or illegal activity condoned by Sun 'n Fun management. The Fly-In claims he is "disruptive" (which he now proudly admits... if you call good journalism a disruption). Sun 'n Fun has also been effective with local officials in having Campbell prohibited from large areas of airport, in clear violation of public access laws. The Lakeland-Linder Regional Airport, home of the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In, receives federal, state, and county monies, (even though SnF President Bill Eickoff refused to disclose, under oath before a Federal judge, being the beneficiary of such funding) and is supposedly prohibited from banning journalists because of any exposés they may write. Sun 'n Fun itself benefits greatly from public funding (millions of dollars' worth, over the years), and is thus also prohibited from banning legitimate journalists, just because, in the words of Lakeland Mayor "Buddy" Fletcher, they'd like him to "only write nice things" about the meet.

Sun 'n Fun has gone so far as to prohibit Campbell's access, under threat of arrest, to FAA-sponsored events, in nearby FAA facilities -- because the FAA building is surrounded by Sun 'n Fun grounds.

The ban is ironic. In fact, Campbell has written a LOT of "nice things" about Sun 'n Fun, and still sends staff each year, for wall-to-wall coverage of this event. Face it -- almost all of the coverage of Sun 'n Fun is concerned with what you're interested in: the people, the machines, the cool gadgets, the developments, the science, the flying, the airshows -- not the officials!

Campbell's bona fides check out.

He is invited to all the other fly-ins in the world, including other EAA-sponsored meets. His organization, the Aero-News Network, is popular around the world in the aviation industry, and has also been the official news source of the EAA fly-ins at Arlington (WA) and Copperstate (in Arizona), and the Aircraft Electronics Association. Campbell's coverage of events in the past 12 months includes events sponsored by, in addition to the EAA (Sun 'n Fun's parent), the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the National Air Transportation Association, the Professional Aircraft Maintenance Association, the Helicopter Association International, the Air Force Association, the United States Ultralight Association, the Soaring Society of America, Women in Aviation International, and dozens of others. AOPA; the world's largest pilot's organization, not only allows, but "welcomes Campbell's coverage, positive and negative," noting that they have "nothing to fear from objective reporting..."

Fraud and Viciousness!?

Over the years, Sun 'n Fun has made its displeasure well-known. Some expressions of that displeasure have been pretty aggressive. Campbell has been assaulted once by a Senior SnF staffer with a moving vehicle, received e-mail from highly visible SnF personnel addressing him as "jew-boy," and some of our readers were directed by SnF personnel (when they complained about the banning order) to some web-sites.... one of which featured a caricature of his office adorned with swastikas and another site authored by a person who published his plans to maintain the harassment of Campbell until "the dog is dead." In one truly bizarre misdirection, Sun 'n Fun referred a local newspaper to Revolution Helicopter some years ago claiming that Campbell was picking on them, too... Revolution was eventually shut down by Campbell's reports and government action, but in the meantime, dozens of people were reportedly defrauded of millions of dollars, over a dozen pilots were killed in their products, and the better part of some 100 accidents and incidents in that aircraft were recorded--leaving one of the deadliest trails in sport aviation history. Interesting choice on their part... no?

Sun 'n Fun's campaign of revenge against Campbell got particularly bad last year. Under the express direction of the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In, the security company they hired for the event (DSI Security) distributed copies of Jim Campbell's DMV record/picture and posted them publicly. A number of passersby who asked them about this document, so visible in and outside the guard shacks (see above, right), were often told that Campbell was a known terrorist and that they had orders to arrest him. Some of the people told this were sponsors of the Aero-News Network, as well as staffers, readers, and friends. The DMV record, we are told by state officials, appears to have been illegally obtained and posted. According to DSI, nothing was said or done without the express direction of Fly-In officials. This was particularly disgusting in that the Fly-In, last year, wrapped itself pretty heavily in the flag and claimed to be honoring our forces abroad with displays and statements of public patriotism... while other of their actions made a mockery (in our opinion) of all that this country was fighting for (especially the Constitution).

And then this year, Sun 'n Fun, who had held itself up as a paragon of virtue within the aviation community, was found to have been providing (according to an excellent and somewhat surprising piece of journalism by the Lakeland Ledger) false statements of its widely disseminated attendance figures to its vendors, exhibitors, government agencies and the public, at large. This happened after ANN had been questioning their figures, for several years, as simply "unbelievable."

The ONLY place he's banned is Sun 'n Fun--period.

The founder of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Paul Poberezny, has said it's wrong for Sun 'n Fun to ban Campbell.

The President of the EAA, Tom Poberezny, has said as much, also; but the EAA doesn't directly control Sun 'n Fun's activities.

The previous Administrator of the FAA, Jane Garvey, has also said it's wrong.

It's time for Sun 'n Fun to grow up, and recognize that there's still a free press in America, and Campbell is part of it.

What Can YOU Do About It?

Sun 'n Fun has been officially notified of a major court action over this matter. We had hoped that this would not be necessary but it's obvious that cooler heads will not prevail. Nonetheless; ANN would still like your assistance. We've not made as big an issue out of this as we might (though, that is about to change...) because we really didn't believe that such insanity would go on this long and that adults would keep acting like this. Our estimations of their maturity and good sense have obviously been faulty, so it's time to "get real."

We need your help to make sure that as many responsible people know about this outrage as possible. 

• Contact your elected officials and ask that they step in and enforce our Constitution (clip the above story, if you find it convenient). 
• Protest to EAA, Sun 'n Fun, the FAA, and the City of Lakeland. 
• Write us a letter for the protest file so that we can archive that with the several THOUSAND others we've gotten (nearly 11,000 last year) over the past few years (there IS strength in numbers).
• Make this an issue to as many of the appropriate parties as you can and please be sure to copy us on everything you do and (especially) any responses you get.

We've worked hard to earn your trust and serve your interests to our best ability, and we'd like to enlist your support to stop an unjust situation that needs strong and corrective action. Aside from the crimp it puts in our ability to do our job for you, we really disapprove of their sense that they can do anything they want, no matter how arrogant, indiscrete, dangerous or harmful it may be to people like you.

Be heard. Be counted. Tell us what you think we need to do next. Protest an atrocious action that is tarnishing the world of aviation. In the meantime, we'll do our job... telling you what we think you need to know, warts and all, thoroughly, properly and for the ultimate benefit of all who love aviation. 

Thanks!

FMI: publisher@aero-news.net