The Lawyer Pilots Bar Association met from January 14-18, 2004 in the desert southwest at the Lowes Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson. A first class resort located at a base elevation of 3,000 feet on the south face of 7,255 foot Mount Kimball, about 100 members enjoyed warm sunshine while the rest of the country was experiencing extremely cold weather.
The Board of Directors and Executive Committees met on Wednesday and dealt with the many challenging tasks of running a quality international bar association.
Our traditional welcome party featured singing cowboys and tasty barbeque.
Our CLE program began on Thursday under the able leadership of President-Elect Kathy Yodice. The program was both interesting and informative. CLE presentations included Matthew W. Broughton and Nel Sanders-Stubbs discussing the legal options available for sharing aircraft, NTSB Judge William Mullins discussing the inner workings of the NTSB, and Phoenix attorney Christian K.G. Henrichsen providing insights into the practice of law in Arizona.
Our CLE programs continued with longtime member the Honorable James A. Teilborg, U.S.District Court Judge from Phoenix telling us about "Thunderstorm Avoidance in Federal Court". Continuing with our ethics theme, Gary Allen continued with his popular series on "Ethics: Circumnavigating the Buildups" . Greg Fieth, former NTSB senior air safety investigator and an aviation consultant discussed weak links in accident investigations. Our excellent CLE program concluded with longtime member Jack Harrington, VP Business affairs of Eclipse Aviation, describing the development of the Eclipse 500 light twinjet. Jack promises to have a certified example giving demo rides at our Summer 2006 meeting!
Some of our brave members heeded the call to "head for the border" and were soon in Nogales, Mexico at the El-Cid restaurant. After some shopping we re-entered the USA without incident.
Our member enjoyed golf at the Tucson National Golf Club. Our traditional fun run was more of a mountain climb. We headed up the Ventana Canyon trail at dawn and were treated to sunrise among hundreds of centuries old saguaro cactus.
Our spot landing demonstration was held at the Marana Regional airport. Our member Jon Trachta was able to convince airport manager Charles Mangum to allow us to use the facility, and a safe and exciting landing demonstration was held. The results were an unusual tie for first place between Gary Evans in a Twin Commander and Stuart Smith in a Cirrus SR-20. Bill Wimsatt finished second in his freshly painted Bonanza.
Spot landing winners each received a "Demolition Dick" doll that honors Chicago Mayor Richard Daley for his criminal destruction of Miegs Field One of the highlights of the meeting was our Friday night dinner at the Pima Air Museum. One of the world's most complete collections of military aircraft (the folks at Davis-Monthan AFB boneyard just roll a lucky survivor of each aircraft type the across the street to the museum), we were given time to explore the outdoor exhibits before dinner. Our dinner was served in a hangar under the wing of a B-24 "Liberator" and the bar was positioned under the nose guns of a B-25.
Several of our members spent an afternoon touring the vast storage areas of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. An unusual model of government efficiecy, old aircraft are stripped of usable parts and the airframes sent to onsite smelters. We observed several new programs that are disposing of large groups of Air Force C-141's, Navy C-9's and P-3's, and even several dozen F-14 Tomcats awaiting a certain fate.
Our meeting concluded with a Saturday night banquet that included a 50th birthday celebration for our longtime executive director, Karen Griggs. We made plans to attend our summer 2004 meeting in Sunriver, Oregon and thanked President Tim Miller, Carolyn Miller, program chairperson Kathy Yodice and the entire LPBA Board of Directors for a great meeting.