As always, we welcome your comments and ideas and of course, if your residential airpark isn’t listed or if you have information about other fly-in communities in the state for which we’re reporting, or any other state, I urge you to email me.
Illinois’ 18 airparks include four that opened in the 1960s and 1970s. The oldest of the group saw its first operations in 1966 with another one in 1969. There was one started in 1986 and four in the 1990s. That indicates a good support for the movement in this upper Midwest state.
The airparks vary greatly in size, based on the number of residential lots. One airpark has only six airpark lots with another seven communities listing 15 or less homesites. However, from that point the next smallest fly-in community reports it has 30 lots and the next one up has 40. There’s one more with 45 lots and one with 47 but the next jump is to 65 homesites, then 80 individual properties. Two fly-in communities report they have 140 homesites in their project.
All of the lots are reported at an acre or more. A few fly-in communities failed to report the size of their residential lots so it is possible some have sites less than an acre.
There are no publicly owned residential airparks in Illinois. All claim to be privately owned. By the same token, only two of the Illinois fly-in communities are open to the public. All the others restrict their use to property owners and their guests.
Runways are predominately in the 2.000 to 4,000 range. Nine of the fly-in communities reported runways at least 2,000 feet long and less than 3,000 while another seven listed their runway length between 3,000 and 4,000 feet. There was one landing strip that came in between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. None were over 5,000 or less than 2,000 feet long.
The residential airparks indicated seven of the runways were paved and 11 were unpaved.
- Day Aero-Place – Urbana
- Riley’s Field Airport – Plainfield
- Aero Estates – Belleville
- Chicago Glider Club Glider port – Minooka
- Naper Aero Club Airport – Naperville
- Case de Aero – Hampshire
- Metro-East Airpark – St. Jacob
- Bel Air Estates – Poplar Grove
- Dury Estates – Hurst
- Woodlake Landing /Sandwich Airport – Sandwich
- Aero Lake Estates Airport – Genoa
- Coursen’s Landing – Galena
- Nettle Creek Landings – Morris
- Centennial Heights – Danforth
- Midwest Skypark – Peru
- Brookeridge Aero – Downers Grove
- Meadow Creek Airpark – Monee
- Ariel View Estates – Hurst