Lansing Municipal Airport is a public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

located south of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, in

Lansing Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, makin ...

, a village in

Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, United States. It is owned by the Village of Lansing. Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter

location identifier A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer programm ...

for the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

and IATA, Lansing Municipal Airport is assigned IGQ by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA. The airport is home to a number of flight schools and is a hub for student pilots.

Facilities and aircraft

Lansing Municipal Airport covers an area of which contains two

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

paved

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

s: 9/27 measuring 3,395 x 75 ft (1,035 x 23 m) and 18/36: 4,002 x 75 ft (1,220 x 23 m). It also houses a blimp base which launches 1/4 of the blimps that cover Chicago sporting events. For the 12-month period ending June 30, 2020 the airport totaled 60,000 aircraft operations, an average of 164 per day: 91%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

and 9%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) ...

. For the same time period, there were 53 aircraft based at this airport: 44 single engine and 2 multi-engine airplanes, 5

helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

, 1 glider, and 1

ultralight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with aile ...

Ford Hangar

The Ford Hangar, located at the Lansing Municipal Airport in Lansing, Illinois, is an airplane hangar built beginning in 1926, and completed by early January 1927. It was established as a historic building on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. It was built under the direction of Henry Ford to serve as a facility to produce and display Ford Tri-Motor airplanes.

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

purchased 1400 acres of land in Lansing in 1923 to build an airport to connect southland Chicago with his factories in Detroit. Beginning June 1, 1926, work began on clearing land to build the hangar which was expected to, upon completion, hold three of Ford's Tri-Motor planes. Architect Albert Kahn oversaw the design and construction of the building. He was Ford's chief architect and wanted to design a space that would solve a number of problems found in early hangars. He incorporated a number of innovations into the building that had not existed in airplane hangars prior to that time. Many hangars were poorly designed, temporary buildings that were not well lit. To solve this, Kahn incorporated three distinct features into the building. He used an architectural technique known as cantilevered construction that allowed the interior of the building to be open without need for columns to support the building, as well as reduce wind pressure on the building. He designed the hangar doors on the north and south side of the building to be easily moved by just one person. Operating on a wheeled track located on the inside of the building, the doors could be opened to any length by one person, regardless of wind or weather conditions. Kahn also looked to improve the overall environment of the building by incorporating as much natural light in the building as possible. As a result, he incorporated five large 15 by 18 foot window openings that, when combined with the open sliding doors, allowed for natural light to reach about 40 percent of the total floor area of the hangar. Ford's dreams of Tri-Motor construction were hampered by the beginning of the Great Depression. He stopped making airplanes by July 1932, and rented the airport land and the hangar to his former airport manager Elmer L. Browne, and later the Hammond aviator Guy W. Amick. The hangar and the airport were acquired by the Village of Lansing in 1976 in order to qualify for federal funding. The hangar was in its original use until 2011, when it was vacated for preservation purposes. Efforts to rehabilitate the building to its original appearance are currently underway.

Incidents

*On July 24, 1966, a Beechcraft Bonanza bound for Lansing Municipal Airport crashed on a nearby golf course. The pilot and all three passengers were killed. On board were professional golfer

Tony Lema Anthony David Lema (February 25, 1934 – July 24, 1966) was an American professional golfer who rose to fame in the mid-1960s and won a major title, the 1964 Open Championship at the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland. He died two years later ...

and his wife. *On October 14, 2004, a

Cessna 172 The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company.Munster, Indiana Munster is a suburban town in North Township, Lake County, Indiana, United States. It is in the Chicago metropolitan area, approximately southeast of the Chicago Loop, and shares municipal boundaries with Hammond to the north, Highland to th ...

about away from the airport. *On September 10, 2012, a

gyroplane An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an engine-driven propeller. Whi ...

crashed in a field about 170 yards south of the runway, shortly after takeoff at 11:20 pm. The pilot, who was the only person on board, was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after the incident. *On October 5, 2019, a helicopter belonging to SummerSkyz Inc., lost its wheel, which then fell through the roof of a Lynwood, Illinois, resident's home. No one was home when the incident occurred, and no one was injured.

References

External links

Lansing Municipal Airport
(official site) {{US-airport-ga, IGQ, - Airports in Cook County, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois