2019 Convention Schedule Details
Convention Details Firmed Up
Cliff Van Vleet
Convention Chairman
The dates for the 2019 SWPC convention are Monday, June 24, 2019, arrival day, through Friday morning, June 28, 2019, departure day.
The convention airport is Colonel James Jabara Airport (AAO) on the northeastern edge of Wichita.
CTAF/UNICOM 122.7. WX ASOS 134.025 (316-636-2541), home of EAA Chapter 88. Jabara is an uncontrolled airport located just outside the Dwight D. Eisenhower airport control zone. There are several non-towered airports on the east side of Wichita which will encourage good map/GPS reading to safely navigate into Jabara.
The convention motto will include the words “Wichita, Air Capitol of America” and we had hoped for a picture of B-29 Doc to be on the convention patch and convention shirts. Because the logo is a copywrited piece of art, Walt Disney does not want it used however. We’ll come up with a good patch design regardless. It will be posted when completed.
Convention Chairman:
Cliff Van Vleet 520-378-2517, [email protected].
Convention Registrar:
Carole Van Vleet, 520-378-2517, [email protected].
Costs for events will be:
Registration: $50.00 per person thru April 30, 2019
$60.00 per person May 1-June 1
$70.00 per person after June 1
Meet and Greet included in registration
B-29 Doc Tour $30.00 per person
Membership luncheon $20.00 per person
Ladies Kechi Tour $15.00 per person
Textron/Beech Tour $20.00 per person
may require TSA security clearance
Poker hand $10.00 per hand per person
Thursday Banquet $35.00 per person
Convention shirts S M L XL XXL $24.00 per shirt
Cliff Van Vleet, SWPC convention 2019
3705 E. Shawnee Drive
Sierra Vista, AZ, 85650
520-378-2517
The convention motel is the Best Western North Wichita Hotel and Suites, 915 E. 53rdSt North, Wichita, KS, 67219, offering free hot breakfast, fitness center, indoor pool, guest laundry, pet-friendly, on-site Country Kitchen restaurant, free Wi-Fi, mobility and accessible features. The motel has approved us to bring in our home-baked cookies and goodies — provided we will share them with our motel management points of contact! Sweet Deal. Door prizes including home built crafts will be on display in the day ready room at the motel.
Motel Reservations; 800-528-1234 or 316-832-9387. www.bestwestern.com. Ten rooms are blocked for Friday and Saturday, June 21 and 22 for early arrivals. Fifty rooms are blocked for Sunday, June 23 through Friday, June 28, 2019, first come first served. Room rates will be $82.99 plus $11.26 state sales tax and lodging local tax (sorry!) for a total of $94.25. Make your reservations early to ensure snagging a room. Be sure to request your SWPC convention rate.
Recommended overflow motels are:
Courtyard by Marriott Wichita East, (316)-636-4600 and
Holiday Inn Wichita East (316)-686-7131.
The EAA Chapter 88 Jabara airport clubhouse facilities have been rented/ reserved for Monday through Thursday. The clubhouse has a complete kitchen plus meeting room capable of seating 50-75 people indoors. We will have the Monday Meet and Greet at this facility. It will also serve as the airport flight line hospitality facility. It is not yet determined where airplane parking will be, the choices being either on the tarmac in front of the FBO or in the grass between the EAA club house and parking apron. We are negotiating whether in-the-grass camping will be allowed.
Some of the following details continue in negotiation so are subject to correction as we move ahead.
Saturday-Sunday June 22-23: Pre arrival days for pre convention sight seeing.
Monday, June 24: Arrival day.
Monday 1 pm: Board of Directors meeting.
Monday 4 pm: Meet and Greet at Jabara airport, catered by the Best Western kitchen.
Tuesday, June 25, 8:30 am: Bus, promptly, to General Eisenhower Airport to tour the B-29 Doc and visit the new Doc museum. Frank Berry, Doc historian and hangar tour coordinator will lead this tour.
Tuesday 12:00 noon: Membership Luncheon at the Best Western motel catered by the Best Western kitchen, Frank Berry, Doc Historian, speaker.
Tuesday 2:00 pm: General Membership meeting and election at the Best Western motel.
Wednesday morning, June 26, SWPC technical forum at the Best Western motel conducted by Steve Pierce, Pierce Aero, Graham, TX, 940-549-6415,[email protected]. This is a reprise of the very successful forum Steve presented at the Branson convention.
Wednesday morning Ladies Tour (Men welcome if desired) to Kechi (Key-Chai) featuring craft businesses. Box lunch, please request on registration page either ham or turkey. Possible chapter president’s breakfast.
Wednesday 1:00 pm: Bus trip to the Textron/Beech manufacturing plant for a tour of the Beech facilities. Attendees may be required to pre-register for TSA terror vetting.
Thursday morning, June 27: Fly-out/poker run from Wichita to B -29 Memorials at Pratt, KS and Great Bend, KS. Gilbert Pierce will lead this fly-out. Pratt and Great Bend airports were part of the B-29 “Battle of Kansas” where Boeing built B-29s were finished out in 1944 and 1945 and training of B-29 crews was accomplished for use against Japan.
Thursday all day will be available for sight seeing in Wichita area.
Thursday evening, 6:00 pm: Closing banquet at the Best Western motel catered by the Best Western. Paul Spranger, Service Center manager and Chief Inspector for Midwest Corporate Aviation, [email protected], 316-315-1911, speaker.
Friday, June 28: Departure day.
Transportation available between Jabara airport and the Best Western motel, a distance of 7 miles.
I am very enthusiastic about going to Wichita and playing off the B-29 program and, specifically the beautifully restored Doc. Wichita is the most aviation minded city I have ever visited. They are 100% aviation minded. I encourage everyone to google B-29s on Utube and learn more about their history and their part in ending WW II. Dovetailing with this B-29 story was our Southwest Regional visit to Los Alamos in September 2018 which also has a deep relationship with B-29s. It was incredible how all concerned were able to create schedules, get hardware designed and built (B-29s and bombs) such that the programs came together so tightly in 1945. Incredible.
Mark your calendars and pray for good weather!
Cliff