DeBoer and Latitude take center stage at Aero Club event

Despite the sweltering heat inside Jack DeBoer’s non-air-conditioned hangar at Jabara Airport, more than 100 people turned out Monday afternoon for a Wichita Aero Club event that featured a speech by the hotel entrepreneur – and the first local, public appearance of Textron Aviation’s newest jet.

DeBoer and the Cessna Citation Latitude shared double-billing – and interest – at the Aero Club’s July event, which also was attended by Textron Aviation chief executive Scott Ernest and Cessna chairman emeritus Russ Meyer.

It was Meyer, in fact, who gave DeBoer a personal tour of the more than $16 million Latitude midsize business jet, which last month received Federal Aviation Administration type certification.

“I like it,” DeBoer said following the tour and before his presentation. “I love the flat floor. I hope they (Cessna) sell a ton of them.”

The Latitude is the first Citation to have a flat floor and a stand-up cabin that reaches six-feet-high. Its fuselage is a new design, and its wings and tail are borrowed from the Citation Sovereign-Plus. It has a range of 2,700 nautical miles at high-speed cruise.

When asked if he was going to buy a Latitude, DeBoer said: “I have a disease. I’ve bought so many of them (airplanes).”

DeBoer said he offered to host the Aero Club at his Wichita Air Services hangar, in part, to talk about the company that he’s a partner in. The company, which employs 12 people, including seven pilots, operates and maintains five private aircraft, including a Citation CJ3 business jet and DeBoer’s twin-engine Cessna 310 that he said he has owned for more than 30 years.

“Wichita Air Services has had a very low profile,” he said. “We’ve operated jet airplanes for 47 years without a single incident.”

He said there’s also a branch of the company in Newton that restores classic automobiles and airplanes. He said its latest airplane restoration project was of a Lockheed Electra.

During his speech, DeBoer said an airplane is most importantly a business tool. He said he has used one countless times in building his nearly half-dozen extended-stay hotel brands, which include Residence Inn, Summerfield, Candlewood and Value Place, recently renamed WoodSpring Suites.

He said in one example that he had spent a couple of long days in California and was on his airplane to return home when he got a phone call from a broker about a land deal, and the deal had to be done right away.

“He wants to make a deal and he wants to make it now,” he said the broker said to him.

DeBoer said that land deal has continued to pay dividends to his business to this day.

“That one deal paid for all of this,” he said to the Aero Club audience, motioning to the hangar’s surroundings.

This story was originally published July 13, 2015 at 7:52 PM with the headline "DeBoer and Latitude take center stage at Aero Club event."