Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base is not just a tiny and incredibly busy airport. It is also a monument to a man who believed that every person should get to enjoy the thrill of holding the throttle on a single-engine seaplane.

After flying seaplanes during WWII, Brown began his extensive career as an flight instructor in Florida. After a solid career working for the US Air Force, Brown struck off on his own, finding a large plot near Winter Haven, Florida. Settling on Lake Jessie, Brown wanted to open a school dedicated to civilians, where they could experience the total freedom of taking off from water and controlling their own destiny in the cockpit.

Although Brown died in 1975, his sons took over his legacy, maintaining the seaplane base and the same friendly and encouraging attitude that made their father so well known. Besides being the site of extensive and neighborly flight training, Jack Brown’s base is also the busiest seaplane base in the world, after at least Lake Union Seattle (38,000 annual operations), Kenmore Air Harbor and Lake Hood, Alaska. At its peak, it runs nearly 27 flights per day totaling 10,000 per year.