Cahokia Mounds - East St. Louis, Illinois

Visiting Cahokia on an Indian Summer Day

(11//9/2009)

A trip to Cahokia Mounds had been rattling around in my brain since I first learned about the site in a U.S. history class I took a few years ago. The textbook described the Mississippian Culture and the city of earth mounds built by that culture, which had died out several hundred years before Spanish explorers such as DeSoto arrived. Having never heard of it before, I was surprised to learn it was in Illinois.

An odd cloud on the way to the Pontiac VOR

On this sojourn I was fortunate to have my friend Scott along for the ride. I met Scott through my teaching classes at National Louis University, and in addition to be an ardent road-tripper, he is also an excellent photographer. After postponing a short time in order to wait for ground fog to lift, we headed for Downtown St. Louis Airport (KCPS), via the JOT, PNT, BMI, and TOY VORs. Unfortunately we had a stiff headwind, so we stopped off at Bloomington for fuel at Image Air. We landed on runway 20 behind a Boeing 717, which made for some excitement. While there, we got a peek at their Frasca simulator with the 170 degree wrap around display.

After topping off, we headed south west to the TOY vor, then to Downtown St. Louis. On the way we passed lake Sangchris, which I’m sure many of the ultralight fliers in the club are familiar with. While the flight into St. Louis should have afforded an excellent view of the city, the Mississippi was very hazy, and we didn’t get the expected vista. We landed straight in on runway 23 and taxied over to Ideal Aviation, where they were kind enough to call Jenkin’s Cab for us. Our driver was Mr. Jenkins.

The busy ramp at Downtown St. Louis Airport

The cab ride to Cahokia State Park was about 15 minutes. A highway bisects the state park, with the visitor’s center on one side, and the enormous Monk’s mound on the other. We had Mr. Jenkins drop us off at the visitor’s center.

Outside the modern visitor center at Cahokia Mounds

The visitor’s center is a very impressive operation, featuring a movie theater and large displays of Indian artifacts. Although Cahokia’s website intimates that the center has a cafeteria, all we found were some restaurant booths and a few vending machines. Having passed up the airport restaurant on the assumption there was food at the museum this was a bummer. But, after settling for some cookies and Cheese-Its of indeterminate age, we walked through the exhibits and viewed the orientation film, then walked around the mounds.

While the Cahokia site contained 120 mounds of which 80 are still standing, the largest and most impressive one is Monk’s mound. It’s the largest earth structure in the America’s and the largest archeological site north of Mexico. The mound is impressive one its own: The structure is one hundred feet tall, and the base is roughly the size of the great pyramid of Giza. However, the fact that it was built solely with dirt carried in wicker baskets makes it even more so.

Side view of Monk's mound, one of many at the complex

A great view of downtown St. Louis from the top of Monk's Mound

another view of Monk's Mound

After seeing Monk’s Mound firsthand and enjoying the view of the St. Louis Arch from its summit we called Mr. Jenkins for a ride back to the airport. After paying the gas bill and checking weather we departed on runway 23R. The winds aloft, which had killed us on the way there now gave us a big boost. The GPS showed we were clocking 132kts ground speed! Due to the recent time change, about half of the return flight was at night.

passing Lake Sangchris on the way home

Following a smooth landing at Clow, we headed to Chipotle for beer and a burrito. Having just done over four hours of flying, I was a bit spent.

Herbert Hoover's House - West Branch, Iowa

An Almost Trip Out West
(7/3/2009)

     For the second year in a row, I planned a flight west to check out the sights in Iowa and Kansas. For the second year in a row, it got scrubbed. The original plan was to fly to Iowa City IA, Council Bluffs IA, Abilene KS, Atchison KS, then back to 1C5. In the end, I flew a totally different itinerary, but still had a fun trip.  I had been watching the weather for several days, so when flight services told me most of my trip was a no-go, I wasn’t surprised. Still I decided to set out, get as far as I safely could, then get an updated picture of the situation.

     The first leg of the flight was from 1C5 to Iowa City via the Davenport VOR. For this trip I wisely invested in the external antenna cable for my Garmin-196, so I had the GPS working as well. The ceiling was about 4,000 ft., but visibility was great and winds were light.  One of the runways at the airport was closed, so I was glad I had checked NOTAMs before going.

Crossing the Mississippi westbound

Iowa City Airport

   While I was checking the weather, and realizing that I would definitely not being completing the original itinerary, the man working the front desk asked if I wanted to use the crew van to run into town. I asked if it would be ok to drive to West Branch (10 miles away) to see the Herbert Hoover museum. He said that’d be fine, so I borrowed the van and set off for West Branch.
   
     The Herbert Hoover Museum was much nicer than I thought it would be. It is not a museum so much as a complex. The cottage where he was born is there as well as the original one-room school, and Quaker meeting house. There was also a reconstructed blacksmith shop like the one owned by Hoover’s father. Beyond the collection of period buildings is the Hoover Library, which featured many exhibits about his life. After checking out the place, I drove the van back to Iowa City.

Driving the Crew Van to West Branch

Herbert Hoover's Birthplace and Boyhood Home

   There was a big line of storms to the west, and I was debating staying put and waiting them out in the aviation themed hotel next to the airport. Instead, I opted for a change of plan. Brenda and the kids were in Fort Wayne, IN for the long weekend, so I decided I’d join them. Not wanting to retrace the route I'd just flown, I flew to Marshall County (C75), simply because I’d never been there before, then to Rantoul to visit the Octave Chanute Museum. It was about 45 minutes from Iowa City to Marshall County, then another hour to Rantoul.

A coal barge on the Mississippi

Approaching Rantoul, IL

     Rantoul Airport was strange because two of the four runways are closed as are most of the taxiways. The museum was a mixed bag. The planes in the indoor hangar were in great shape and there were some interesting planes you don’t see very often, but the ones outside were obviously neglected. The inside of the museum was dark and dank, a lot like…well…a closed military base.

Outside the Octave Chanute Museum

Inside the Octave Chanute Museum

   After topping off the tanks, I plotted a course to Fort Wayne, and called for (yet another) briefing. The route was via GPS until in range of the Wolf Lake VOR, then to Smith Field (SMD). With the help of a tailwind and some leaning, the GPS showed a ground speed of 112kts.

Good-bye Rantoul, IL

A windmill farm on the way to Fort Wayne, OH

    After spending the 4th of July in Fort Wayne with the family, it was time to head home. That morning there was an Airmet for IFR conditions. Cielings and visibility were low, but improving. After waiting a while for the weather to improve, I filed an IFR flight plan and got a lift to the airport. My clearance was via radar vectors to Victor-38, Victor-38 to the Peotone-VOR, then to the Joliet-VOR, and finally Clow. My assigned altitude was 4,000 ft. After slogging around in the clouds for a while, I could see that 6,000 was going to be a much smoother ride since the tops were somewhere below that. I asked ATC for, and received 6,000 ft. for my cruising altitude. This put me on top in smooth air. While cruising along Victor-38, I checked in with flight watch on 122.0 and confirmed Clow was VFR.

Breaking out at 6,000ft.

Does this get any cooler?

   Eventually near the Peotone VOR I was cleared to descend to 3,000, which was at the base of the clouds, and told to expect a visual approach. Since I could easily drop out of the clouds now into VFR, I cancelled my clearance, descended, and flew home VFR at 2,000.

   Landing back at Clow, I saw two wiener dogs being unloaded from a Cessna 182; apparently mine aren't the only ones! Total flight time had been aout 6.5 hours and the route have covered about 650 nautical miles.  Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

The Air Zoo - Kalamazoo, Michigan

On the last weekend in February, Brenda, the boys, and I took a road trip to Kalamazoo to visit, Brenda's aunt and uncle. Brenda's uncle Ken is a WWII vet who served in the artillery in Germany and has a strong interest in the war. Since he knew I was an airplane nut, he offered to take me and my father-in-law to the new air Kalamazoo Air Museum, the Air Zoo.

I've been to many air museums and enjoyed them all, but this particular weekend, I was in for a real treat, because it was "Open Cockpit Weekend". Although I'd never heard of a museum doing this before, you could actually climb into the cockpits of the WWII fighters! While I'm sure Brenda's dad and uncle would have been happier actually looking at the inside the museum, they graciously indulged me as I stood in line to hoist myself into the classic warplanes.

The first plane I was able to get in a was an HA-112, which was an ME-109 built under license in Spain. The difference between the Spanish and German planes, is the engine. While the German built planes were powered by a DB-601 inverted V-12, the Spanish ones were ironically powered by the British Merlin. The larger engine gives the Spanish planes a larger, less streamlined looking nose (For a comparison, the recent movie Valkyrie showed one of each flying side by side). Still, you wouldn't notice any of this from the inside except that everything was labeled in Spanish. The cockpit itself was very tight, almost cramped. It would have been even more so with a flying suit and parachute on. There also wasn't much clearance between the top of my head and the heavy, 150 pound, armored glass canopy.

waving from inside an HA-112 (a license built ME-109)

     The P-47 was a whole different story. It was, by contrast, enormous, and the cockpit was extremely roomy. The panel was very well layed out, but it was hard to tell if it had been originally built that way. It was obvious that there had been some upgrades, since P47s weren't built with an HSI.

inside the P-47 Thunderbolt

The plane I liked the best was the Bell P-39 Airacobra. Although the P-39 is atypical, having a car-style door instead of a sliding canopy, it was still not easy to get in and out. The other thing I noticed was that the canopy created a lot of blind spots. Unlike the P-47, which had a large bubble canopy, the P-39 canopy consisted of many smaller pieces of glass held together by a metal framework. Still, there was something "right" about that plane that I really liked.

The Bell P-39 - I could get used to this

The museum also boasted what is called a 4-D theater. The theater played a 3-D IMAX movie about a B-17 raid on Germany. Although the dialog in the movie was a little hoakey at times, the presentation was impressive from a technological standpoint. A touch that I thought was really clever was that the theater was styled as a WWII Quonset hut.  The museum is also kid friendly, and has numerous rides and simulators to keep the little guys entertained.

what a handsome bunch of guys: Brenda's uncle Ken, her dad, and I

If anyone is interested in getting a look into the planes, "Open Cockpit Weekends" in February may be an annual occurrence. If not, I certainly hit the jackpot. For pilots equipped to enter class C airspace, the museum is adjacent to the Kalamazoo airport.