Having a rose compass on an airport taxiway can benefit pilots both when they in the air as well as when they are on the ground.
Longtime Lansing pilot Vickie Szewczyk, a member of the Chicago Area Chapter of the Ninety-Nines women’s pilot’s club, said she appreciates seeing the compasses or other air markings when flying a small plane.
“It’s a good visual aid,” she said. “It’s something pilots can see to confirm where they are at.”
And on the ground?
“I can park my plane and check my compass by pointing it at magnetic north or east or west to make sure my compass is functioning correctly,” she said.
Szewczyk notes there is a variation in the magnetic field throughout the country. In the Lansing area, it is 4 degrees West. In Maine, it is 20 degrees off, she said and in California it’s 25.
As a frequent user of the Lansing Municipal Airport, she had great appreciation when a group of Boy Scouts, led by Naperville’s Alex Steadman, spent Saturday painting a rose compass on Taxiway G.
The 80-foot rose compass replaces one destroyed during airport improvements.
Steadman, a sophomore at Neuqua Valley High School, is heading up this project to earn Eagle Scout status and to help pilots from across the nation who might fly in the area.
Last year, he missed an opportunity for a project in Bolingbrook by one day. But his mother, Jessica Reinschmidt, who is a pilot, used her connections with the Ninety-Nine group, which knew Lansing wanted a new compass on its property.
“We went from no project to ‘Oh my God’ in 24 hours,” Reinschmidt said. “It was zero to 60 in 24 hours.”
The project was a year in the making but Steadman and Troop 75 of Bolingbrook, some members of the Ninety-Nine club, a Scout from the DeKalb area and others were finally out on Saturday painting.
“I cannot say that I knew where Lansing was on a map before this project,” Steadman said. “I never imagined that I would be doing this project specifically, but I knew because my family is very heavily into aviation that I was going to do something aviation related for my project.
“I knew that from the start, and this is something that worked.”
The facility dates back to the 1920s and was used by historic figures such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post, According to the airport’s website, It was known as the Chicago-Hammond Airport until the village of Lansing took over ownership.
The airport traffic heats up in July, when pilots from all over the country either fly over or stop in Lansing to and from the annual air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
“This is a hot spot,” Szewczyk said. “A lot of people like to fuel up here to make that last leg. It’s a nice, safe, easy place to land. It can be a madhouse here.”
“For those pilots who don’t want to take their aircrafts across Lake Michigan, this is a good airport to use as a landmark,” Reinschmidt added. “And you can use this to make sure you are not in O’Hare’s airspace or Midway’s airspace.”
Szewczyk said the Ninety-Nines started in 1929 and Amelia Earhart was the first president. There were 99 female pilots who started the organization and there are about 3,000 worldwide in the group today.
This mixture of history and young people working on this project made Szewczyk happy.
“This is really cool,” she said. “There are plans for doing a project like this for the Lake in the Hills airport.
“The aviation community is rather small. There is not a whole lot of us. For us to come together like this is really cool.”
Troop 75 had eight scouts and some parents helping. The Ninety-Nine group was expected to have close to 10 volunteers.
Steadman is anxious to become an Eagle Scout, but he had to practice patience with this project.
“We had to wait a year because they were repaving this area,” he said of Taxiway G. “That took a while because that requires government regulation and acceptance.
“After that, I was really cranking this into high gear in the last four-ish months and hammering down on the planning.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown
