‘You have to love it’: Windy City Warbirds & Classics returns to St. Charles
From World War I flying aces to Top Gun-style F-16 fliers and everything in between, the skies over St. Charles were abuzz Friday with scale-model planes that didn’t take a lot of squinting to look like their full-size counterparts.
Fox Valley Aero Club’s 12th annual Windy City Warbirds & Classics showcases radio-controlled military aircraft and civilian classics that have a wingspan of over 70 inches.
The show continues Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the club's airfield at 3831 Karl Madsen Drive in St. Charles.
Dale Gathman, president of the Fox Valley Aero Club, said more than 40 pilots from multiple states will bring more than 100 planes to fly at the airfield over the three days of the show, which started Thursday.
The event features replicas of various aircraft, from World War I era prop planes to current fighter jets with real turbine engines.
Like many other pilots, Gathman said he got interested in aviation as a kid when his dad took him to air shows, and he started building balsa wood plane kits.
He started building a radio-controlled plane before having kids. But he put the hobby aside once they were born and returned to it when they were grown. He now has over 60 scale model RC planes in his home.
“They’re all over my house,” he said with a laugh. “The kids’ old rooms are full of planes. They’re tucked up in the rafters in my basement. I’ve got two fighters hanging in my living room. They’re everywhere.”
Jason Rigney of Arlington Heights said he picked up the hobby about 30 years ago and has since accumulated 30 planes.
He said that when he was a kid, his dad, a World War II veteran, used to take him out to Busse Woods to fly control line planes.
“I had to wait until I was out of the service myself to afford these,” the Marine Corps veteran said. “I don’t play golf. I don’t have a Harley. I have this.”
Rigney said every pilot there shares a passion for the hobby.
“You have to love it,” he said. “All these guys here love it, because setting up and loading the truck and all the prep work it takes to just fly for five to eight minutes is ridiculous.”
Most of the radio-controlled planes are about 20% the size of the real ones. But they are portrayed 100% realistically with custom paint jobs and goggled pilots ready for action in the miniature cockpits.
Julian Wiater, 3, of West Chicago, oohed and aahed over the planes as he walked along the fence line, checking them out.
“He’s loving this,” his mom Agnes Wiater said. “I always drive him by the DuPage Airport so he can watch the planes, and we plan to go up to Oshkosh (for the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh show in late July). He totally wants one. So when he’s a little older, we’ll get him a model.”
Tickets for the event are $5 for adults, and kids 12 and younger can watch for free. There are food vendors on site. Veterans and active military get in free.