Midway Airport: The First Seventy-Five Years |
by Christopher Lynch Lake Claremont Press |
We then pulled up to the "Central" hanger, another one of Monarch's hangers, but smaller than the others. And although it was part of Monarch, the company never seemed to get around to painting over the letters, "Central" that loomed large, above the hangers doors. It's hard to believe, but this small hanger was once the headquarters of American Airlines in the 1930's and 40's. Now, it is the home of small pilots, helicopters, and the mechanics that service them. It is also the site of one of my first summer jobs, where I once spent a summer scraping and painting the fire escape. It wasn't bad, working in the summer sun, and listening to the radio. I have good memories of that job, and at times, I wish I could do it again.
The other Monarch employees who worked the line filling jets on the West end of the field would derisively refer to "Central" as "Sleepy Hollow". We called it "Monarch South,", and it had a flavor all its own, a place of student pilots and roughs, hustlers, and millionaires. It was as cosmopolitan as any place I've ever been, and there are more than a few novels that could be written about it.
Monarch South was presided over by Jimmy Deir, and those of us who worked with him respected him.
But Monarch South was also a strange place. One day, my father parked there, and went in to talk to Jimmy Deir for just a moment. In a minute, his car was gone, stolen. And airplanes attract strange people, like the men with the note pads. These men, and they were always men, fit the classic description of nerds, with their pointy glasses and pocket protectors, and in the case of the ones that would hang around the fence, their notebooks. These men, who also had English accents, would show up from time to time, and stand at the fence, and whenever a plane would land, would write down the numbers on the tail of the aircraft. Or at least they seemed to be writing it down. For if one stole a glance at their notebooks, it was loaded with these so called "N numbers." I have heard of this phenomenon for train enthusiasts, and in England, they even have a name for them "Train Spotters". The Plane Spotters would show up at Monarch's fence at strange hours, and the fuellers would shoo them away.
A hanger, being a transient place, always seems to have people of all descriptions coming and going all the time. One night, when the night employee at Monarch South was there by himself, a lady walked through the door, and when the Monarch employee asked why she was there, she sprinted out of the hanger door and onto the tarmac, and off into the darkness. The next people to spot were the pilots of a commercial aircraft landing on runway 31 saw this woman jumping up and down next to this active runway, and waving at the jet as it touched down. What made this scene more bizarre was that she was totally naked. Needless to say, this woman was escorted away by Security Personnel, and afterwards, Monarch got a buzzer system to improve security.
If aviation draws people off the street of all varieties of craziness, one can imagine what some of the regulars are like. There were the flashy types, who drove Corvettes and wore gold Rolex watches, and who would come in with their designer clothes to fly their newest airplane or helicopter. Then there were the weekend warrior pilots, with their leather jackets and Ray Ban Sunglasses, thinking they were Chuck Yeager, coming off the runway at Edwards Air Force Base, after test flying the Air Forces' newest jet. The next identifiable group were the moonlighting cowboys, fellows that were office workers by day, and flight instructors at night.
It is hard to imagine that at an old hanger, one could find wisdom and civility, but it was possible. One of the flight schools located at the hanger was "T & G Aviation", the place where I had learned to fly. The flight club was run by Thomas W. Goldthorpe, who in my opinion, knows more about movies and books than most anyone. At T & G, I used to visit with Tom, to talk about movies, or the latest books. Sitting around the office there, various people would pass the time. For me, it was less of a flight club, and more of an academic setting, where ideas could be debated and discussed. Besides telling stories, Tom's talent for drawing always impressed me. He had studied graphic design at school, and was a natural. Once, when I brought in a photo of one of my grandfather's DC-3's flying over downtown Chicago in the 1940's, Tom did a pen and ink drawing of it that was truly spectacular.
Tom read so voraciously, he felt he could write better than most of the novels he was reading. And so he wrote a Science Fiction novel regarding the mysterious crash of something in Roswell New Mexico in 1947. Tom would read chapters of it to me, and it was exciting to go to the airport week after week to see how the novel would end. I would also bring in some writing that I had attempted, and Tom would read it, giving me an honest critique of my work. T & G was less of a flight school, and more of a writing seminar, with the occasional noise of a jet rumbling from the tarmac. I'm sure the other student pilots that would come and go through the office thought it was strange to have two people reading out loud to each other, but I didn't care, and I don't think Tom did either.
History was another topic that we would discuss at T & G, over countless cups of coffee, and Tom would speak in revertant tones about the skill and vision of the Wright Brothers, or Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle. It is not surprising that the idea for this history of Midway was born at T & G.
Yet Tom also saw the writing on the wall. He would point to the tell-tale signs that Midway's function as an airport where one could learn how to fly would soon end. And he was right. As the airlines became the economic engine of the field, the small pilots would get squeezed out. Government often looked upon private pilots as millionaires: far from it. Some were rich, but most were working people, mechanics, and office workers who flew on weekends. Most student pilots are like all students everywhere, paying their way the best way they can. Many of these students were from overseas, either Europe or Asia, where flying is so expensive, potential pilots must look towards the U.S. for affordable flight training. Tom lamented the fact that the next generation of pilots would be left for the military to train. There would be no room for civilian pilots, who would become flight instructor, building hours towards a civilian career.
Unfortunately, as flyers got driven off the field, the passenger base was not there for companies like T & G, and so Goldthorpe left after 21 years of business. It was the sign of the times, and larger operations like Monarch would not be too far behind.
Many of the memories from this hanger were melancholy. When I was working there during a summer break in College, I knew a pilot from one of the helicopter companies who used to whistle as he strolled through the hanger. He would always say hello, and tell me stories of flying choppers in Viet-Nam, where he had been shot down four times. He had flown helicopters for over 20 years, and he explained that all his fellow chopper pilots whom he had started flying with were dead, due to crashes. The odds, he said matter of factly, were against him for being killed in a chopper crash. I dismissed his morbid claim, and even went up for a trip over the city once in his chopper, while he flew a flight for one of the radio stations to report on traffic.
Not too long after that, while working my first job out of college in Washington D.C., I learned that this very same pilot had been killed flying the Blues Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan back from a concert in Alpine Valley Wisconsin to Chicago. His prophesy had come true, and I reflected on his fatalistic prediction.
Soon after, I would meet a colleague of his, who had also flown on that ill fated mission. I wanted to give him my condolences. "Geez, Jim, I'm sorry," I said, and he looked at me and shrugged. That's how these pilots lived with the dangers, by shrugging, and pushing the danger aside. A few months later, my heart was chilled to hear the news that Jim had died flying a medivac mission, an ambulance of the skies. At least Jim died doing what he loved, flying, and helping people.
In front of the hanger, we drove on, away from Monarch West's hanger, and all of those memories.
Continue the Tour: National Guard Hangar