Big Foot!
Article and
Pictures by Brian Gilomen
(plus one or two shots by
Mick Pahnke)
Last year the FVFC stumbled across the Big Foot fly-in purely by
accident. I had been the trailing spouse, enjoying an all-expenses-paid
boondoggle to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin while my wife attended an Illinois State
Bar Association function. Driving up on a Friday night in late June, nearing the town of Fontana, we started seeing these flimsy signs proclaiming
that it was the weekend for the famous Big Foot Airfield fly-in. "Damn," I
had thought to myself. "No wings!" But, nice guy that I was, I
called Kevin Bertorelli and advised him to gather the crew for a fun flight the
next day. He did, and they
had a great time.
This year I was prepared! I made excuses to Regina the weekend of the
Cushing picnic, forcing her to make the trek to Wisconsin for the annual Bar
Association meeting all alone. But, I impressed on her the great
importance of looking for those flimsy signs! Sure enough, the signs were
there, and we knew that the fly-in would be the following weekend.
The turn-out for this trip was a little disappointing, but -- only a week after
the wildly popular Gen Air Park/Erie fly-in, not to mention the Cushing picnic
-- I suppose it was reasonable that some folks would choose to take a weekend
off. After the no-shows were winnowed out, only FVFC-E fielded a team,
consisting of me, Mick and Jude, Vance and Kevin. We later learned that
Evan Wright had managed to climb out of bed to make the trip as well.
The trip up was flawless: smooth as glass; great visibility; and
thoroughly enjoyable. The only burr under my figurative saddle was Kevin,
whose nagging about DuPage airspace made me poke at my GPS so many times that I
shorted something out. I feared that it was toast, but -- several hours
later -- it eventually reacquired the satellites.
Our approach to Big Foot was most exciting! We were sharing the pattern to
36 with lots of GA aircraft; a couple of T-6s, and some pilots who were either
clearly not on the radio or who were totally oblivious. Mick lead us in
from the West to do a right hand turn into the downwind. I did so and
found myself looking at the business end of the T-6s, about to turn from
crosswind to downwind. Then a blue biplane cut me off from the West with
barely yards to spare, interposing himself between me and Vance. After that, I
noticed a Cessna on the deck, either intending to land on 9 (which was not being
used and which in any event would have been a downwind landing) or otherwise
just not paying any attention. Mick was by now on final and could easily
have collided with the Cessna at the threshold of 36. I was doing S-turns
to open up space between me and the biplane, and Kevin had to do the same behind
me. I just prayed that the biplane wouldn't stop short to tie his shoe or
something...
Once on the ground, Vance was flagged over to join his biplane brethren:
The rest of us took up
position along the flight line. We quickly buttoned-down our planes and
headed off to the breakfast line.
The crew at Big Foot has this fly-in feast down to a science: they have
built a bunch of circular, rotating griddles out of 1/2 inch sheet iron with gas
burners underneath and slowly turned by sprockets, a chain and an electric
motor:
During breakfast, Evan finally joined us:
Overflowing with eggs, sausage, coffee, chocolate milk, orange juice and all-you-can-eat pancakes, we made our way outside to enjoy the day and a fine assembly of aircraft. The "sound of round" filled the air as Stearmans ("Stearmen"?), Stinsons and T-6s plied the skies. One of the four T-6s that were on the field had florescent orange paint accents; hard to miss on take-off or in the air:
Those same T-6s were hard to miss at Dacy, too, where we ran into them (fortunately, not literally) at the fuel pump. Sure drives home the concept of "light plane" by comparison! My Challenger looks like it just got squashed by that warbird's right wing:
Topped off and done for the day, me, Mick and Jude, Vance, Kevin and Evan made our way back to Clow. After all that rudder action, these Big Feet were tired!
Where To Now?
200 Miles for No Reason in Particular
De Kalb, Illinois: Land of RVs
Father's Day Fly-In to Gen Air Park and Erie
The T2 at the Illinois Aviation Museum at Bolingbrook