St. Louis Landing Recap

by sandy gainza

LOBO members and guests fortunate enough to attend the Landing this October in St. Louis were treated to many informative presentations by our speakers and sponsors, an aircraft museum tour, St. Louis style BBQ, and sightings of the Air Force Thunderbirds (on video). Over the three day event between 50 and 60 LOBO members gathered, 18 of whom brought their spouses along. We had representatives from nine exhibitor/sponsor organizations, and about 40 aircraft on the Creve Coeur tarmacs.

The general meeting on Thursday saw the election of three new board members, including a new board President (see his first post here). The afternoon sessions were divided into several tracks featuring our sponsors and an air traffic controller from the St. Louis Tracon.

Friday featured several informative presentations during the morning. After lunch, keynote speaker Tom Turner of Mastery Flight Training got everyone thinking about the "First 400 Feet." (TOM IS DOING A WEBINAR ON THIS SUBJECT SOON: WE CAN PUT A LINK TO THE RECORDING HERE WHEN AVAILABLE) The aircraft museum tour, followed by a BBQ with a live band in the hangar at Creve Coeur airport capped a full day!

Saturday brought us all together in general session with our keynote speakers, Tom Turner, John Teipen, Rudy Haug and Richard McSpadden. The Saturday night banquet was a lovely steak dinner, served by the friendly staff at the Doubletree by Hilton. Our silent auction raised over $4,500 to suppport the LOBO organization, thanks to the efforts of Don Saks and Shelby Edwards. We honored two retiring founders of our organization, Claudette Colwell and Jeff Edwards. Enough cannot be said about the many contributions to LOBO they have made over the past eleven years. Entertainment for the banquet was a presentation by Richard "Spad" McSpadden, Executive Director of the AOPA Air Safety Institute. Previous to his role in IT at Hewlett Packard, Spad spent 20 years in the US Air Force. One of his assignments was as lead pilot for the USAF's flight demonstration team, the Thunderbirds. His video and description of the Thunderbirds was incredible as well as inspiring.

Heartfelt thanks to Judy Pastusek who organized activities for he LOBO "Flygirls" around the area, including tours of the Missouri Botanical garden, the Sachs Butterfly House, and the iconic Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis.

Many hours of work go into producing each Landing, thanks to all who volunteered. Special kudos to John Bleich whose AV magic each year enables our presenters to be heard!

Photo Album

Photos of everyone enjoying the Landing, compliments of Donna Scales, are available online. You may also order prints if you see one you'd like to keep. Click here to view the online photo album.

Participants in many of the seminars receive Wings credit and the hours spent count toward the LOBO standard of ground training required for recurrency. The Landing is a great way to see old friends, make some new ones, hear about what's new, and learn more about your aircraft. Which means.....we will be hosting another Landing in 2020! Keep reading for more information about what we are planning!

Thank YOU to Our Sponsors! 

Our Landings would not be possible without the financial support of our sponsors. Landing sponsors get face time with customers and potential customers, and attendees get up-close access to vendors offering the best products and services for the Lancair community. Additionally sponsor donations help fund LOBO programs and initiatives that benefit our members. Our Landing sponsors are needed and greatly appreciated; please take a moment the next time you deal with one to thank them for keeping your Landing registration costs as low as possible. The 2019 LOBO Landing was sponsored by:

Please keep our sponsors in mind the next time you are shopping for products and services for your Lancair!

For questions/comments on the post please contact Sandy via email: s.gainza [at] lancairowners.com.