Vintage Chicago Tribune: The city’s aviation obsession as the Chicago Air and Water Show takes flight
It’s gonna get loud over the city this weekend, Chicago.
The Chicago Air and Water Show returns with a full show for the first time since 2019. The U.S. Navy Blue Angels are here and so are the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team. A variety of military and civilian performers, too. Organizers expect up to two million people to gather at the lakefront to watch the spectacle, which takes place Saturday and Sunday.
The show rekindles memories of sitting on the folded-down tailgate of our family’s station wagon near the Lincoln Park Zoo, eating homemade sandwiches and then nibbling on a frozen paleta purchased from a vendor by my father — all while searching the skies to be the first Rumore kid to witness jets roaring by at Mach speed, cargo planes lumbering just above Lake Michigan and aerobatic aircraft corkscrewing toward the sun leaving trails of smoke to mark their paths. Nighttime meant finding a parking spot off Lake Avenue to watch the performers land at Naval Air Station Glenview.
Just a few generations ago, flying was a marvel to most Chicagoans. They, too, showed up to watch fantastical flying machines soar over the lakefront — sometimes with disastrous results. Here’s a look back at how advances in aviation have taken to the air in our fair city.
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— Kori Rumore, visual reporter
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1911: Chicago gets a case of ‘aviationitis’
The city hosts an international air meet that was considered a great success — only two pilots died. Read more.
Fliers competed for generous cash prizes — as well as fame and glory — from Aug. 12 to 20, 1911.
In the early 20th Century, flying in Chicago was run by a private club — the Aero Club of Illinois.
1919: The fiery crash of the Wingfoot Express
On July 21, 1919, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.’s Wingfoot Express dirigible took a joyride from Grant Park over the Loop, with catastrophic effects. See more photos.
18 years before the Hindenburg, a blimp disaster hit the Loop.
Grant Park: ‘Chicago’s front yard’
When the Graf Zeppelin flew over Chicago at the World’s Fair of 1933, it bore a Nazi swastika on the port side of its tail section.
Chicago radio man’s Hindenburg broadcast endures.
1929: Amelia Earhart organizes the Ninety-Nines. A Chicago chapter of the women’s flying club follows five years later
“It is up to women,” Earhart told some 300 attendees at a dinner at the Congress Hotel in 1928, “to get behind the aviation program and to aid it in every possible way. Not to have had a ride in an airplane today is like not having heard the radio. There is a great deal that women can do for aviation besides learning to fly and I hope they will do it.” Read more.
World War II: Two steamships are converted to makeshift aircraft carriers for pilot training
In the early 1940s, the Navy chose the former Naval Air Station Glenview as its carrier qualification training site. When pilots satisfactorily completed several takeoffs and landings, they proceeded to Point Oboe — the Bahai House of Worship in Wilmette — and from there to coordinates in Lake Michigan where they rendezvoused with either the USS Sable or USS Wolverine, which were formerly passenger liners. Read more.
Documentary explains how Lake Michigan became an aircraft graveyard during World War II.
Navy Pier’s zany past.
Photo gallery: Naval Air Station Glenview.
Black Chicagoan John C. Robinson fought Italy’s fascists as commander of Ethiopia’s air force.
Sept. 18, 1949: Airport on former farmland becomes O’Hare
A ceremony is held at the airport to rename the field in honor of Lt. Cmdr. Edward “Butch” O’Hare, a Navy aviator, who received a Congressional Medal of Honor for placing his plane between the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier, and nine Japanese bombers, shooting down five of them and damaging a sixth on Feb. 20, 1942. He was killed in action on Nov. 26, 1943, during the Navy’s first nighttime fighter attack from a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Though its three-letter International Air Transport Association code (ORD) continues as a vestige of its original name — Orchard Place. Read more.
Read the Tribune’s original story on the dedication from Sept. 19, 1949.
Butch O’Hare: WWII flying ace.
Photo gallery: The dedication of O’Hare International Airport — The story behind the story.
President John F. Kennedy arrives in Chicago to dedicate O’Hare airport.
That road O’Hare is on? It’s named for Bessie Coleman.
Midway is the little airport that could.
1959: First Chicago Air and Water Show
Water skiers, games and a diving competition filled the city’s first air and water show in 1959, which was a celebration for kids in the Chicago Park District’s day camp program. It was produced for just $88, but received not even a mention in the Tribune.
More than 60 years later, organizers expect about 2 million people at lakefront beaches this weekend to watch aerobatic feats in the sky and simulated rescue operations in the water at the first full show since 2019. Read more.
Al Benedict: Making the air show fly.
Actor Vince Vaughn — and his mom — jump with the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team.
Photo gallery: 2019 Air and Water Show.
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Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com.
