B-29 bomber ‘Doc’ gets a big lift from county budget

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said which year's budget the donation came from.

Sedgwick County made a $200,000 donation Wednesday to help pay for B-29 Doc’s new $6.5 million home at Wichita Eisenhower National Airport.

The money, Sedgwick County Commission Chairman David Dennis said at a news conference, comes from the 2017 budget. The donation, announced at Doc’s temporary hangar at Air Capital Flight Line in south Wichita, comes a day after the Wichita City Council approved a 40-year lease agreement for the restored B-29 bomber’s 32,000-square-foot hangar and education center at 1788 Airport Road.

Jeff Turner, chairman of Doc’s Friends, the nonprofit that owns and restored the Wichita-built, World War II-era Boeing plane, said the group has raised a little more than $5 million for Doc’s new building. “We’re still focused on raising another million and a half,” Turner said, adding some of that will come from sales of brick pavers place at the front of the new building.

He said the group is “very close” to starting construction on Doc’s new building.

“Our plan is to be in it this fall,” Turner said.

This story was originally published February 28, 2018 at 5:33 PM with the headline "B-29 bomber ‘Doc’ gets a big lift from county budget."