Aviation Community Hosts Return to Kerrville Reunion Fly-in

April 29, 2013
Rebecca Hupp has been on board as director of the Boise Airport, also known as Gowen Field, for a year now. As director, she’s responsible for all of the infrastructure for commercial passenger and cargo services, including day-to-day operations and long-term planning. Right now, that includes overseeing construction of a $13 million, 770-space parking garage expansion that’s been in the works for three years.

April 29--Hoping to rekindle the local air show that once drew hundreds of pilots, Kerrville's aviation community hosted 150 people for lunch Saturday, among them 27 pilots who flew in for food and fellowship with friends and family.

The event was dubbed the "Return to Kerrville Reunion Fly-in," due to it being the first of its kind held in decades.

Georgetown resident Dick Gossen arrived in his Glasair III, a fast, two-seat fiberglass plane with about 2,000 flight hours that he built 23 years ago. Gossen said what drew him to Kerrville was the company of other aircraft enthusiasts, the courtesy lunch and the chance to see other pilots' planes. Gossen's friend, Austin resident Robert Elliott, arrived in a plane built in Kerrville by Mooney Aviation Company. Elliott left his plane at the airfield for its annual inspection and flew back with Gossen that afternoon for the half-hour trip back to an airfield in Georgetown, where both men are based as members of the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 187.

Gossen said fly-ins can afford pilots the opportunity to get up to speed on the latest technology if aircraft manufactures are present to show off "new tools and new toys." Mooney Aviation is still open in Kerrville, but is not producing airplanes, although Elliott said he hopes they do again someday.

Gossen fondly recalled attending the Southwest Regional fly-in sponsored in Kerrville by the EAA in the early 1980s.

"It was a great airshow," Gossen said. "It was a large gathering with a whole bunch of antique and homebuilt airplanes."

Charles McIlvain, executive director of the Kerrville Convention and Visitors Bureau, who chaired the committee that organized Saturday's fly-in, said the prospect of bad weather prevented more pilots from flying in for Saturday's event. Some pilots opted instead to drive, McIlvain said. He hopes the new annual event will attract more and more visitors each year.

"This group has disposable income, and we want them to come back to Kerrville and enjoy our shops and our restaurants," McIlvain said.

Local businesses such as golf courses and youth ranches were advertised in the hangar where the lunch was held, giving visitors a look at the various attractions offered in the area.

The event also was made possible by the local main street and chamber of commerce associations, Kerrville Aviation and the airport board and others.

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