Every day there are several copters that fly along the shore line, some heading north, others south. I thnk I recognize the bright red ones that fly low as coast guard copters, or some such. And I’m sure there’s the occasional photographer and traffic copter. But what’s all the other traffic? Midway’s closed now so I can’t figure where they’re coming from and where they’re going to. Who’s taking all these flights?
Some may be medical transport. And at the moment, I think they’re gearing up for the Air and Water Show this weekend. I don’t have any other ideas, though.
Ive seen choppers land in a couple Chicago hospitals. Im not sure where they came from, but lets say they were picking up someone who wouldnt be moved from Evanston then they would fly that path to get to Children’s Memorial or St Mary’s.
Evanston Hospital doesn’t have a heliport. The only hospitals anywhere near the lakefront that do are Stroger (Cook County Hospital) and Lake Forest Hospital. I’m thinking that it’s unlikely that there would be two or three medical helicopter transports per day between those two hospitals or from other sites to Lake Forest Hospital. No, there’s an additional explanation for these flights. Just can’t think of what it could be.
University of Chicago Medical Center has one.
Pretty sure Children’s Memorial Hospital has one (and are trying to get one approved for their new place in Streeterville).
Both are not far off the lake.
Lots of airshows go on during the summer along Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan shore.
We see helicopters flying by our part of the shoreline (south of Two Rivers and north of Milwaukee) pretty regularly on the weekends, and not infrequently during midweek as they go from one airshow location to another. Many of them are military choppers. I expect they come and go from various sites, including those close to Chicago. Glenview Naval Air station comes to mind, though I don’t know if it is active. Or perhaps the Great Lakes Navy training base by North Chicago has flights too.
Alas, it has gone the way of “development.” It’s now called “The Glen” and consists of rows and lanes of new housing and a significant shopping/dining area.
Don’t know if Great Lakes does much. Still, I’m perplexed by what seem to be a lot of copter flights virtually every day. Can’t be that many air shows or medivacs.
Huh? Children’s Memorial has a heliport in Lincoln Park right near the lake and so does St. Mary’s or whatever the one on division and western is called, albeit a bit west. I dont see why you wouldnt fly over the lake to get to either destination.
What time are these flights? You probably have one or two just for LSD traffic. Ive also read that IDOT has choppers too.
Let’s see… medivac, police, every TV news station has a couple choppers so (Channel 2, 5, 7, 9, 32… that’s 10 to 15 right there). Helicopters are used in skyscraper construction for things like hoisting HVAC units to the top of tall buildings, and most of the antennas on the Sear— >cough< Willis Tower got there via chopper. Ariel photography. Sight-seeing tours? (Possible, though I am not familiar with such they probably exist.) Some big execs use choppers to commuter from point to point locally.
And…
… this may surprise some people, but there are private helicopter pilots, just as there are private airplane pilots, and some of those flights are undoubtedly rather ordinary citizens who just happen to have earned helicopter licenses and have the means to rent or even own a chopper of their own who are out enjoying the view from the Chicago Lakefront flyway which, as the name implies, runs parallel to the Chicago lakeshore (the traffic is supposed to stay over the water so that, in the event of an accident, the wreckage goes into the water instead of a people-filled beach or park)
Helicopters have landed in the golf course across Girard Street from Evanston Hospital in the past. I have no personal knowledge of any helicopter landings in the past decade, but they have landed there before, and, presumably, they could land there again.
I realize my comment doesn’t really address the question originally posed.