W96 2005 Fly-In

The meeting was held at the New Kent Airport at 6 pm on Tuesday, August 9th. In attendance were Bill K., Harper K., Mike C., Doug C., Bill M., Sherri F., Darlene W. and Pat W.

Posters are available for distribution at the airport. Please take a couple and put one up at your work site and if you are traveling to other airports, take one along and ask that they put it up on their bulletin board.

Doug C. gave a report on his efforts to garner publicity for the event. He has already contacted all the radio and television stations in the area. He also contacted all the surrounding newspapers and added our information on the AOPA and EAA coming events websites. Hopefully this will gain us some attention and improve attendance.

The Fly-In still needs a food vendor. We need someone who will cook and serve the food there at the event and charge reasonable prices. They do not have to pay a vendors fee, nor will they be paid by the airport, but should be able to make a substantial profit from the attendees. If you have someone in mind, please contact them immediately and let Bill K. know of your effort and the result.

We again reiterated the need for those pilots who are going to participate in the bomb drop to register early and follow the pilot procedures which will be outlined in the pilot's briefing to be held before the event (which starts at 1pm). Late registrations will NOT be considered and at the briefing, each participant will be assigned a group and position in that group. No more than 4 in the pattern at any time.

We are also going to furnish a flyer for every pilot attending on the proper procedures during the event. This will be a set of voluntary procedures we would like followed to ensure safety of both the aircraft, pilots and visitors. The airport will institute a ONE WAY traffic flow for taxiing and parking. The west end of the parking area will be for EXIT ONLY and the east end of the parking area will be for ENTRY ONLY. This should help move the planes more safely.

Local pilots at New Kent who want to display their airplane should move them PRIOR to the event so that they are not caught up in the traffic flow. Move them on Saturday or EARLY, EARLY, EARLY Sunday morning. There will be a few reserved spots on the grass for the Cubs, C-60 and Stearman. We will decide if we need other reserved spots as the event draws closer.

Raffle tickets are still in plentiful supply for the Stearman ride. If you have not picked yours up for sale or purchase, please do so as soon as possible. They are $5.00 apiece and only 200 are being sold. And a reminder that the stubs must be turned in on or before August 31 because the drawing will be held on September 1 at the airport.

We have received word that Sam S. will be loaning us a PA system for the event, so that is taken care of also.

Bill K. mentioned that he has purchased 4 orange vests that will be worn by the airplane parking crew. We are also going to provide some sort of ID badge or button for the volunteers so the visitors will know to whom they should ask questions or voice concerns.

Please make a note that we are only having the BOMB DROP competition this year and Sue B. will handle the details of that event for registration and measuring. We are considering only allowing TWO bombs to be dropped for the price of $5.00. This will move the event along more quickly. We will also do a better job this year of managing the groups takeoff and landings (the pilot's briefing will help this too).

We also have invited local Ultra Light clubs and Motorcycle clubs to the event. The Farms of New Kent is having a "Farmers Market" that day (as if they were really farmers) and will be putting up signs about the "Festival of Flight". We might need to have flyers available at their event to show how to get to the airport. There is a map on the W96 website of the airport location, so have your friends visit the website for directions.

If you have other things we need to discuss, please email me so I can put them on the agenda for the LAST meeting before the fly-in. This meeting will be on August 31 at the airport at 6:00 pm.

BTW, the Virginia Aviation Ambassador Program has started and there are passports available at New Kent. Ask for yours next time you're there.

Pizza and drinks, compliments of the airport, were enjoyed by all in attendance.

The meeting was held in the terminal building at W96 and in attendance were Bill K., Gary G., Pat W., Sheri F., Bill J., Rod M., and Scott G.

The group discussed everything that was planned including, the Stearman ride raffle, Trans States Airline tickets raffle, food vendor, parking, invitations to groups, pancake breakfast, bomb drop, posters, sponsors, marketing and everything else under the evening sun.

We will get together again within the next 2 weeks for an update, as the event is just a little over a month away.

The first meeting for the 2005 New Kent Festival of Flight was held on Thursday at 6pm at the airport. In attendance were Bill Kelly, Gary Green, Daniel Sharp, Bill Jefferies, Bob Rebold, Mike Carpenter and Pat Wilson. Bill furnished pizza and sodas and napkins too.

Sue Brubaker, Mark Williamson, Norm Valor are going to help but could not make the meeting. And I'm sure there are others who didn't get the word that will help out too, so please let me know if you intend to participate.

Tickets for a Steerman ride will be sold in advance and the winner drawn before the event. Please be prepared to sell a book of five tickets at $5.00 each. We are going to limit the number sold to 150-200 tickets.

We will send out a flyer inviting all types of flying clubs and organizations (GA, Ultralights, etc.) and are asking that they let us know in advance if they intend to particpate and how many so we can park them correctly. We are also inviting some local motorcycle clubs (HOGS, CMA) , RC Clubs and this year we are going to ask a vendor to handle the sale of the food. This will free up volunteers for the other jobs that went unfilled last year.

We are inviting the State Police to participate with their robot, one of the Army or National Guard helicopters, Med Evac, New Kent County Police, Fire, etc. and if you have others you can think of, let me know please.

Bill Kelly is contacting a vendor about the food; Gary Green is going to work on the poster (there was some whining about what planes should be on the poster and it was decided by Gary that ONLY short wing Pipers would be used, but he was quickly voted down); Pat Wilson will look into printing Steerman ride tickets, check on Med Evac; Dan Sharp will look at the C-60 returning, getting the Steerman ride and getting other Warbirds involved;

Only a bomb drop contest will be held this year, no spot landing event. The participants will be divided into several groups and the pilots will have a sheet of rules to follow and must be registered before the event. Registration cutoff will occur 1 hour before the event and a pilot's breifing will be held after cut off.

We need a better, more robust PA system. We are looking for someone who can provide that system. Also, we want to encourage sponsorships at 100.00 / 200.00 per sponsorship and they will get signage and many promotional announcements during the event. We may also allow booths for those sponsors who would like to participate.

If there are things discussed we did not mention, please correct my notes and send back to me so I can adjust the minutes.

An announcement of the next meeting will be coming out shortly, as we have only about 8 weeks before the event takes place.