Originally posted on LinkedIn September 28, 2026 If you drive north out of Chicago along Lake Shore Drive as it merges into Route 41, the urban grid slowly gives way to the open green spaces, wooded estates, and corporate campuses of Lake County and the North Shore. Tucked right into that northern corridor sits Waukegan National Airport (UGN). Unless you fly general aviation, you might not give UGN a second thought. But for the corporate footprint of northern Illinois, it’s o

Originally posted on LinkedIn September 21, 2026 You can’t talk about aviation in Chicago without eventually getting to the giant in the northwest corner of the city: O’Hare International Airport (ORD). Today, O’Hare is enormous—eight runways, multiple terminals, endless concourses, and tens of millions of passengers moving through every year. But about 80 years ago, there wasn't much there at all. The area was known as Orchard Place. During World War II, the federal governme

Originally posted on LinkedIn September 14, 2026 If you drive west out of Chicago along North Avenue or Route 64, the scenery slowly starts to change. The high-rises and dense suburbs give way to corporate campuses, warehouses, industrial parks, and the growing business centers of DuPage and Kane counties. Right in the middle of it all is DuPage Airport (DPA). And it has been there a lot longer than most people probably realize. The airport traces its roots to 1927, when two

Originally posted on LinkedIn September 8, 2026 If you grew up listening to WBBM on the radio or flying regional routes around Chicago, you probably didn’t call it Chicago Executive Airport. You called it Palwaukee. And Palwaukee wasn’t some carefully chosen aviation brand. The name came from exactly where the airport was located: near the intersection of Palatine Road and Milwaukee Avenue. The airport itself dates back to 1926, when it was little more than 40 acres of grass

Originally posted on Linkedin on August 31, 2026 For a generation of aviation enthusiasts and virtual pilots, the obsession with flying began in the exact same place: lined up on Runway 36 at Merrill C. Meigs Field. Long before setting foot on a real tarmac, millions learned the basics of pitch, roll, and power settings looking past a pixelated dashboard at the iconic Chicago skyline. You throttled up, lifted off, and immediately banked over Lake Michigan with the Sears Tower

Originally posted on Linkedin August 25, 2026 Being from the Midwest, I've always had a fascination with Chicago. One of my earliest memories is a family "vacation" organized by my grandparents that took us aboard Amtrak from Holland, Michigan, to Union Station. Granted, we're talking about the late '80s, so aside from distinctly remembering the U-505 submarine and the massive whale skeleton at the Museum of Science and Industry, some of the details are a little cloudy. But i