Yesterday we first got a message from Scott Taylor (GA operation manager) that our plane was OK. This was followed by a photo of N307HL standing upright among the carnage with what appeared to be double ropes tie downs.
I went ahead with my plan and flew to TPA this morning. I arrived at SnF at noon. When I stopped and asked for direction to the parking lot, I was told that there was a huge 2hrs+ line. I headed for the motel, checked in, logged on line and found Rick's email telling me of the bad news. Scott went back to inspect the plane and found some leading edge damages so GA will fly our plane back to Arlington to repair it.
Since the purpose of my trip is to fly our plane back to NY, this news came as a disappointment. Oh well, I am here so I might as well try to get in to see the airshow and check out new products. I will probably feel a lot better to have a look at N307HL. I could not see any damages from the photo so they are likely to be minor. The fact that Glasair will fly it back to their factory meant that it is airworthy.
SnF facebook apologized for the horrible parking condition today and promised things will be much better tomorrow. They have to truck in a lot of gravel to repair muddy areas for more parking.
Hai Longworth