ScottM
Taxi to Parking
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iBazinga!
Last week it was a beautiful day in the midwest, 40 degrees, sun and lite winds. Since I am trying to eat up some vacation time I decided to fly down to Rantoul, IL (KTIP) to the old Chanute AFB now an air musuem. I had been TDY to that base twice during my Air Force carrer and had not seen it since it closed in the early 90's. The old base had plenty of cool static displays including a B36. I thought this could be a lot of fun and from their web site the musuem looked very interesting.
From 10C it should have been a short flight but those lite winds I mentioned, well they were not lite after about Joliet. Winds alloft were at 34knots form the SE and the surface winds at Rantoul were 190 at 14 gusting to 21. Not a huge deal but it would slow me down. KTIP has a R18 so no big deal with cross winds. After preflight I figured I would just take off and head south.
If you have read my posts about flying around the Chicago area you may know that flight following is not always easy to come by. The Chi-TRACON guys can be pretty busy. But around DPA after listening for 5 minutes I decided to give it a try. I got FF but what happened next surprised the heck out of me. The controller ask my direct course to TIP and what my final alitude would be. I was at 3500 to avoid ORD and DPA traffic but once south of Aurora I was going to ascend to 5500 and catch the lighter winds.
Well he cleared me direct, I looked at my chart and queried him as to being very close to ORD class B and asked him to confirm cleared into the bravo. That is when the strangeness started. It is hard to get into bravo in the Chicago area even when IFR. One 4th of July at midnight with no traffic around I could not get into it to save 30 minutes off of a trip. But today the controller, without me asking directed and cleared me into the bravo.
That cut about 10 minutes off of my trip. Once I left Chicago airspace the rest was simple midwest, flat farm, flying. For fun I shot the GPS 18 approach into Rantoul and landed with no problems.
Parking is right accross form the musuem and the charge is free parking and $7 entrance to the musuem.
The musuem itself was well worth the trip. There is a timeline diorama that you walk through to see Chanute through the ages. One of the displays even shows the resident rooms when I was there in the 1970s. It was a little scary going through a musuem and seeing stuff you remember in the fading the photos, I felt a bit aged.
One thing I learned that I had not known before was that the Tuskegee arimen, BEFORE they wer so named started their flight training at Chanute in the 1940s.
After the displays it is into the hanger to see the aircraft and missle silos. Chanute was were they trained alot of the missle maintence crews so there are mock ups of minute man and MX missle training silos that can be toured.
Airplanes were in pretty good shape with the usual suspects, F111, F4, F101, T38, P51, etc. steppinjg outside there were some nice big guys including a C130, B58, F15, and a few others. The outside ones were not in as good a shape as the inside planes. The C130 is sometimes open for touring when the weather is nice, but it was closed the day I was there. After a couple of Atlantic crossings in a C130 I had pretty much had my fill of that plane anyways so not great loss. There is also a good deal of fire equipment as this is the base that trained the fire fighters in the Air Force.
The people at the musuem were very nice and knowlegable, one of them was stationed there as an instructor in the engine maintence schools.
I recomend this as a stop for a good few hour visit.
http://www.aeromuseum.org/
From 10C it should have been a short flight but those lite winds I mentioned, well they were not lite after about Joliet. Winds alloft were at 34knots form the SE and the surface winds at Rantoul were 190 at 14 gusting to 21. Not a huge deal but it would slow me down. KTIP has a R18 so no big deal with cross winds. After preflight I figured I would just take off and head south.
If you have read my posts about flying around the Chicago area you may know that flight following is not always easy to come by. The Chi-TRACON guys can be pretty busy. But around DPA after listening for 5 minutes I decided to give it a try. I got FF but what happened next surprised the heck out of me. The controller ask my direct course to TIP and what my final alitude would be. I was at 3500 to avoid ORD and DPA traffic but once south of Aurora I was going to ascend to 5500 and catch the lighter winds.
Well he cleared me direct, I looked at my chart and queried him as to being very close to ORD class B and asked him to confirm cleared into the bravo. That is when the strangeness started. It is hard to get into bravo in the Chicago area even when IFR. One 4th of July at midnight with no traffic around I could not get into it to save 30 minutes off of a trip. But today the controller, without me asking directed and cleared me into the bravo.
That cut about 10 minutes off of my trip. Once I left Chicago airspace the rest was simple midwest, flat farm, flying. For fun I shot the GPS 18 approach into Rantoul and landed with no problems.
Parking is right accross form the musuem and the charge is free parking and $7 entrance to the musuem.
The musuem itself was well worth the trip. There is a timeline diorama that you walk through to see Chanute through the ages. One of the displays even shows the resident rooms when I was there in the 1970s. It was a little scary going through a musuem and seeing stuff you remember in the fading the photos, I felt a bit aged.
One thing I learned that I had not known before was that the Tuskegee arimen, BEFORE they wer so named started their flight training at Chanute in the 1940s.
After the displays it is into the hanger to see the aircraft and missle silos. Chanute was were they trained alot of the missle maintence crews so there are mock ups of minute man and MX missle training silos that can be toured.
Airplanes were in pretty good shape with the usual suspects, F111, F4, F101, T38, P51, etc. steppinjg outside there were some nice big guys including a C130, B58, F15, and a few others. The outside ones were not in as good a shape as the inside planes. The C130 is sometimes open for touring when the weather is nice, but it was closed the day I was there. After a couple of Atlantic crossings in a C130 I had pretty much had my fill of that plane anyways so not great loss. There is also a good deal of fire equipment as this is the base that trained the fire fighters in the Air Force.
The people at the musuem were very nice and knowlegable, one of them was stationed there as an instructor in the engine maintence schools.
I recomend this as a stop for a good few hour visit.
http://www.aeromuseum.org/
