Colonel Joe Kittinger Park

If you accept this park for what it is, you’ll be pleasantly surprised! My husband is a pilot and general aviation nerd, so bringing my son here is like heaven for him. He can watch the planes and listen to air traffic control, while my son plays. There is no bathroom and the playground is very basic but it gets the job done.

It may seem like a tiny little park but there is lots to do if your family enjoys outdoor activities. We love to come here for a nice jog or run in the park. At times, we also come and have picnics or just play on the swings. There’s lots of history and culture here at this park. it’s always a fun time when we come

Its a tiny little park, just off the 408 beside the Orlando Executive airport. It is also on the bicycle trail.
You can sit on a bench and watch the airplanes and blimps take off and land, rest for a while and maybe enjoy a picnic lunch if the weather’s nice.
There is a small kids playground too!

Every time I exit the 408 at Crystal Lake I drive past Kittinger Park and I think to myself «what an odd little park».
And it is indeed an odd little park. The parking lot is separated from the playground by a small pond. There is a sidewalk that circles the pond. And that’s about it.
My family needed to kill some time so we stopped at the park to look around. There were some people fishing behind the playground (in a not so scenic patch of Lake Underhill). We saw a couple of joggers, but otherwise the park was deserted.
My kids enjoyed the playground equipment. It is a good spot to sit and watch the planes from executive airport, however we had bad timing and we only saw one plane while we were there. We also didn’t hear the audio from the airport that other reviewers mentioned. I’ll have to go back and listen for that.
A big negative is the lack of restroom facilities. I suppose whoever designed the park had a good reason for leaving them out, but it’s still inconvenient.
The location of this park makes it extremely convenient for a quick stop to get some fresh air and watch the planes.

They use the work «Park» in very loose terms. There’s a small parking lot that leads to a very long sidewalk that leads to a small play area next to two covered picnic tables. We picked up lunch at the Honey Baked Ham store nearby and enjoyed eating while listening to the Control Tower at the Executive Airport clear planes for take-​offs & landsings. There’s a view of Lake Underhill (the dirty side) and athough it was hot, there was a nice breeze. The park is adjacent to the 408 so there’s always noise from traffic. There are no restrooms or running water.

I have four kids and two of them can enjoy this park. They are both 2.5 years ago (twins) and we go to this park about once a month. I find if you go on the weekends you get a lot more airplane traffic which the kids seem to enjoy. We will bring lunch and sit under the covered the patio to eat. Kids will then run off and play until exhausted. They are a bit young for the park but it doesn’t phase them.
Also, the patio has a speaker directly tied to the control tower of the Executive Airport. You can actually listen to the tower and pilot talk back and forth. If you catch a good day you will get lots of traffic with mostly Cessnas and the occasional private jet. Also, they have several helicopter pads which adds for something else for the kids to enjoy. Again, very cool park for 2 to 7 year olds.

This is one of my favorite parks in Orlando. It’s small, but the opportunity to watch planes landing up close can’t be found at any other park in the area. The aviation-​themed playground is great for kids, and the picnic table and benches makes for a nice spot to chill. My favorite feature is the speaker in the pavilion that is tuned to the tower frequency for the executive airport. It’s awesome hearing planes cleared to land and seeing them touch down on the runway a few minutes later.
The only reason I’m not giving 5 stars to the park is that it is a small park which has no restroom facilities available.

I’ve often passed by this small park without a second glance but I needed somewhere to pass the time with my kid and this was close by.
The parking lot has plenty of spaces for the size of the park and there is a path leading up to the gated playground. There are 4 bouncy airplanes and a good sized climbing slide thingy.
The coolest feature and the reason this park gets 4 stars was the speaker located by the picnic tables that enabled you to listen to the tower talking to the airplanes. It wasn’t a busy day but we had a lot of fun watching planes coming and going.

It’s 79 degrees out with a light, cool breeze. I’m starving, cubicle fever is in full swing, and just outside my Jeep waits for me with the top down. It’s a collection of incentives too hard to ignore.
Sure, it’s way out of my way, but the drive is part of the thing. From Research Park I head out to my two favorite bánh mì locations around Mills 50, pick up one from each (I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to go to, so both it is!) and drove back to Kittinger Park to eat at one of the picnic tables.
It’s not a big or full-​featured park, but I love it. Especially on a nice day like this. As I eat my bánh mì at a picnic table in a small gazebo with not another person in sight, I watch the birds sunning themselves by the water and listen to the occasional tower communications provided by a speaker installed in the gazebo. I watch an otter swimming around nearby crawl up on land for a minute, then slip back into the water.
Eventually I walk down the path back to the Jeep and start the drive back to work. But I’m almost okay with it because I feel much, much better.