Oshkosh, Wisconsin 2009
AirVenture, Jul 26-30
Trip Home
Itinerary
What is AirVenture
Details & Pricing
5 days/4 nights
• 3 nights Country Inn and Suites, Appleton
• 1 night Milwaukee InterContinental Hotel
Physical Activity Rating: Level 1
Travel Partners: exclusive to MIT community members
Maximum group size: 30
Register for this program (PDF)
Please note: no brochure will be mailed for this program.
Join fellow alumni for an exciting program to attend the Experimental Aircraft Association's Fly-In Convention, now known as EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, July 26-30, 2009.
As
part of the MIT program, you will enjoy preferred seating at the flight line
for the afternoon air shows, attend private talks, and have the convenience of
a private welcome center set up just for MIT participants.
Study the latest aircraft and innovations; discover new
ideas and techniques from the nearly 1,000 forums and workshops; see aviation's
top personalities; or just talk airplanes with people from around the world.
Tour
highlights include:
- Spend two full days at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the international gathering place for aviation enthusiasts.
- Meet with local MIT alumni and EAA members for special briefings and private tours.
- See the spectacular Afternoon air show, featuring the world's finest air show performers.
- Enjoy exclusive use of an air conditioned "chalet" reserved for MIT that provides premium Air Show viewing.
- Take private tours of the Grohmann Museum and Great Lakes WATER Institute in Milwaukee.
EAA AirVenture Oshkosh serves as one of the world's premier aviation events, attracting hundreds of thousands of aviation enthusiasts. It spans the entire spectrum of aviation and attracts 10,000 airplanes each year. If you were to walk past each row of airplanes at AirVenture, you would cover 5.2 miles! Typically about 2,500 show aircraft participate at AirVenture, including homebuilts, antiques, classics, warbirds, ultralights and rotorcraft.
The Silver Bracelet Story
A second guest speaker will share a story that is 65 years in the making. It is the story of Jim Weiler’s B-17 pilot graduation silver bracelet. The bracelet was lost in the plane wreckage after Jim was shot down in the worst loss of life by U.S. airmen in a combat mission over Czechoslovakia on August 29, 1944. The story traces the efforts to return Jim’s bracelet from behind the iron curtain, the many lives that were touched along the way, and the history the process has gathered. We’ll see new images of what it was like to be on that fateful combat mission and the efforts to remember the legacy of B-17 veterans today by villagers of a grateful Czech nation. The story finishes with two shot down fliers from opposite sides of the Aug. 29th battle shaking hands 63 years later as friends. Our guest speaker Todd Weiler is Jim Weiler’s nephew. As a result of researching this story, Todd has been elected to Historian for the 2nd Bombardment Group of the B-17 veterans organization.
We conclude our stay in Milwaukee for one day of private touring of a few of the great sites of Milwaukee.
To reserve your space on this program, please call the MIT Alumni Travel Program at 800-992-6749 or email the Travel Program at compass@mit.edu.
