The 50th Annual SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo started off on the right foot with the Innovation Preview, a rapid-fire showcase of the latest and greatest from across the campus, all in one convenient place.
It's hard keeping up with all the goings-on around the SnF campus, even for those who walk lines and check out every little hangar along the way, but Aero-News Network herded some cats and brought out the best of it to establish a parade of new developments. This year was plush with announcements, again, with everything from diesel-powered Piper Seminoles to augmented reality for ForeFlight users. New aircraft, new engines, new avionics, and returning favorites round out more than 2-and-a-half hours of nifty, fresh product announcements. Faster, more affordable aircraft like a 200-mph Bristell 916RG Turbo or a 4-seat Montaer MC-04 push the boundaries even further for their respective marques, offering more bang-per-buck than older pre-MOSAIC sportplanes.
On the tech side of things, ForeFlight brought out a nifty little VR/AR tool for those early adopters with an Apple Vision Pro. While it's a little early in the product's life cycle, it's apparent that the platform has some promise for training, simple digital adventure, and study. ForeFlight allows for a pretty immersive checkout of foreign locations, allowing pilots to get a feel for the terrain, hazards, and layout of an airport with the same view they will have from the cockpit. Safety tends to be the focus of the other tech demos, too, as companies further explore how much they can improve the flight experience with all these increasingly high-performance smartphones around.
Best of all, the Innovation Preview is still available for those who missed the opening-day festivities. Simply check out the Aero-News Network on Youtube at the link below.
FMI: www.youtube.com
