{"id":44151,"date":"2024-04-14T16:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=44151"},"modified":"2024-04-14T16:49:07","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T20:49:07","slug":"lakeland-air-force-service-member-returns-home-to-fly-in-50th-sun-n-fun-expo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/04\/14\/lakeland-air-force-service-member-returns-home-to-fly-in-50th-sun-n-fun-expo\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland Air Force service member returns home to fly in 50th Sun ‘n Fun Expo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The annual Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo is celebrating its 50th year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From planes flying through the skies to being able to step into others on the ground, it\u2019s a return home for Lakeland native Chad Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI grew up coming to this air show from as little as I can remember,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chad started flying lessons at Lakeland International Airport at 15 years old before getting his pilot\u2019s license at 17. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s since dedicated his life to flying, spending nearly 20 years in the Air Force where he now contributes as an instructor pilot teaching others to fly the KC-135.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis plane was built by Boeing back in the 1950s and it\u2019s been in service ever since, so it\u2019s one of the older planes that the Air Force has in its inventory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing kids and adults alike line up to catch a glimpse of the planes that fascinated him growing up is one of the reasons it\u2019s important to him to be a part of this expo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou see kids wearing the shirts with the planes on it and kids who are in the little flight suits and I know I felt the same way I did when I was eight,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday is the last day of the expo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The annual Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo is celebrating its 50th year. From planes flying through the skies to being able to step into others on the ground, it\u2019s a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sun-n-fun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44153,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44151\/revisions\/44153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}