HELICOPTERS BACK IN CHICAGO! It has been over fifty years since city administration kicked helicopters out of the Windy City and almost a dozen years since they bulldozed the runways on Miegs Field … it’s taken until now for the Fed’s to bring big Sikorsky’s back over the Loop.
Few people remember or even knew that in the 50’s we had over 400 public use heliports (most fenced with concrete pads) in the greater Chicago Area. The majority of these and sister projects in New York and Los Angeles were established through the Postal Service, much like the Airlines in the 30’s, to subsidize air mail and passenger service. These ports were primarily utilized by Chicago Helicopter Airways and Butler Helicopter Air Lift to …
- Shuttle thousands of passengers daily in S55’s and S58’s between O’Hara, Midway, Miegs, Evanston and Gary as the major fields transitioned from props to jets
- Pickup airmail at the heliports or from telescoping poles raised above post offices and dropped in saddlebags, ala Pony Express
- Provide executive shuttle service between office rooftop and the airline gates
Until … the Federal subsidy and their protection ended … and city administration made it illegal to land anywhere in Cook County except at a certified airport (not heliport) in the early 60’s. Fifty years later the city bulldozers did the same job to fixed wings by plowing the runway at Miegs Field, not even HAI or AOPA could help.
The Heliports? Most vaporized … Go Blackhawks!