Meigs Field visit

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 5:23 pm

Very sad to see what it has become. Next to the park there was a sign that said "Your tax dollars at work by the Honorable Mayor Daley. Honorable my foot.

There is all kinds of wreckage from the airport pushed off into the lake. It was a pretty nice day there, and you can see how crazy busy the park is.

Holedigger · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 7:36 pm

Chicago politics at it's best!!! Or is that, at it's usual!!

In an illegal move on March 30, 2003, Mayor Daley ordered private crews to destroy the runway in the middle of the night, bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface. The required notice was not given to the Federal Aviation Administration or the owners of airplanes tied down at the field, and as a result sixteen planes were left stranded at an airport with no operating runway, and an incoming flight was diverted.

From Wikipedia :shock:

DryMartini · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 12:31 am

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I'm still pretty browned off about that whole episode.

Enemy Ace · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 5:56 am

My brother and I used to fly my 182 up to Meigs from Atlanta, we would go downtown and meet my dad when he got back from a UAL flight. we would have dinner, stop by the cheescake factory in Hancock tower and spend the night in one of the downtown hotels. We did that several times a year.... Obviously never again after Meigs was destroyed. So Chicago lost several thousands of dollars a year from our family alone.

daveymac82c · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 12:00 pm

I don't know the area at all, nor the demographics, but wouldn't that have been a freaking amazing place to build an air museum?

And, if it's a park, how come it hasn't been developed into a sporting destination with baseball diamonds, soccer fields and tennis courts? I could be, and then maybe people would go. Perhaps a play ground...

Anyways, It's sad to see what's happened to that airfield. I've never been there, but I tell ya, in the past I used to do hundreds of circuits there on my Microsoft Flight Sim!

Thanks for posting pictures, it really fills me in on what's going on there.

Cheers,

David

daveymac82c · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 12:04 pm

I just thought of something clever!

Just like that numpty smashed up the airfield at night... Couldn't someone go in at night and put up an International Orange windsock at each end of the field and then first thing in the morning operate it as an uncontrolled airfield?

Maybe even organize a pleasant little fly-in? Perhaps a group of airplanes could experience simultaneous engine failures and be forced to land there, then.... after closer inspection each engine turned out to be in perfect working order.

-David (The Law Breaker)

love2gofly · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 12:06 pm

Looks big enough to land on.

Fouga23 · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 2:09 pm

National disgrace! How that *ssh*le could keep his office is beyond me!

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 4:02 pm

Fouga23 wrote:

National disgrace! How that *ssh*le could keep his office is beyond me!

Easy, it is Chicago, where they vote early, vote often and even the dead vote...................

We need another great fire in the Chicago govt buildings.......... Who has a cow and lantern we can borrow ?

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Sun May 31, 2009 4:08 pm

Matt Gunsch wrote:

Fouga23 wrote:

National disgrace! How that *ssh*le could keep his office is beyond me!

Easy, it is Chicago, where they vote early, vote often and even the dead vote...................

We need another great fire in the Chicago govt buildings.......... Who has a cow and lantern we can borrow ?

Now I can get behind that!!

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11332

Looks like a nice place for an airport to me...

Hal B · **Posted:** Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:37 am

Looks kind of like what happened to Sand Point NAS in Seattle years ago...

Pat Carry · **Posted:** Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:23 am

Donated organs for patients needing transplants at near by Northwestern Memorial Hospital were routinely flown into Meigs before it was shut down. I'm sure the airport's closing has affected the speed at which the hospital receives those organs now!

RandolphB · **Posted:** Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:17 pm

One of the issues mentioned when the field was bulldozed was a longer repsonse time to accidents on the lake. About a year later a fellow drowned and the resucue crew said they could have saved the victum had they been closer....until the city government just issed a statement saying "No, they couldn't". Nothing like having experts in charge is it?

If any of US bulldozed a field we'd be charged with a "Terrorist Action" ...why hasn't anyone shut down Daly and HIS Al Quada cell?

Holedigger · **Posted:** Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:21 pm

Because now Chicago stye politics has been exported to DC! Now that Blago is free of his duties, he'll probably head over there too! :wink:

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