Schaumburg Regional Airport
The Schaumburg Regional Airport is a relatively small regional airport about twenty-two miles northwest of Chicago. It’s located in the village of Schaumburg, which gives the airport its name, and is publicly owned by that village.
The Schaumburg Regional Airport is a relatively small regional airport about twenty-two miles northwest of Chicago. It’s located in the village of Schaumburg, which gives the airport its name, and is publicly owned by that village. The Schaumburg Regional Airport is in the DuPage county of Illinois, and covers a total of one hundred and twenty acres of land with a single long runway with a concrete surface. If you’re interested in more details as relates to the layout and runways of the airport, read further on in this article and see what you can learn.
From the Schaumburg Regional Airport, passengers can and do fly all over the country, often in small single engine aircraft or small private jets. The Schaumburg Regional Airport is primarily a general aviation airport, which means it caters specifically to pilots flying their own planes or other privately owned craft, rather than a large number of air taxi and cargo transport planes. The Schaumburg Regional Airport is actually the closest general aviation airport to the large international airport of O’Hare International, the main airport used by the city of Chicago. The Schaumburg Regional Airport has the advantage of being smaller and caters more to private pilots, which makes it an ideal place for flying as a hobby, private flights, and even things like pilot’s lessons.
While the Schaumburg Regional Airport may be considered rather small when compared with large international airports like the one at O’Hare, the Schaumburg Regional Airport is by no means an isolated or lonely place to be. In 2006, for example, the Schaumburg Regional Airport experienced a total of thirty-six thousand different aircraft operations – not a bad number at all for an airport of the Schaumburg Regional Airport’s size and capacity. Nearly all those operations – ninety nine percent – were general aviation, while only one percent (three hundred and sixty total) were air taxi. For the uninitiated, general aviation means private or hobby flights – pilots flying for themselves or for private clients. Air taxi, on the other hand, is what most of us are more familiar with – passenger jets flying around the country. The reason for this extreme ratio is simple: O’Hare International is only a few miles away, and has flights all across the country and around the world.
Because of this, the Schaumburg Regional Airport is often preferred over O’Hare International for the use of individual pilots, smaller aircraft, and especially for giving pilot’s lessons to new pilots – the relatively small and safe environment of the Schaumburg Regional Airport is far less intimidating than the mass of movement and complexity that is found at O’Hare.
The Schaumburg Regional Airport has a single runway, perfectly suited to most small to mid-sized aircraft, and a great runway for beginning pilots to learn to fly. We’ll talk more about the lessons and training opportunities at the Schaumburg Regional Airport further on in the article – if you’re a prospective student pilot, keep reading, because you’re in luck!
The single runway at the Schaumburg Regional Airport is thirty-eight hundred feet long, or one thousand one hundred and fifty eight meters long, if you prefer the metric measurement system. It stands at a direction of 11/29 and has a concrete surface. The combination of the surface type and the runway length at the Schaumburg Regional Airport means that this airport is incapable of handling many larger aircraft, but that doesn’t matter due to the proximity of O’Hare – as we’ve already said, the Schaumburg Regional Airport caters far more to smaller planes and private pilots.
As we’ve already said, ninety nine percent of all aircraft operations undertaken at the Schaumburg Regional Airport stem from private aircraft, or “general aviation” in the terms of the airline industry. Many of those aircraft operations are performed by aircraft actually based at the airport. Many local pilots base themselves out of the Schaumburg Regional Airport, rather than having to deal with the complexity and rush of nearby O’Hare – if there’s one thing one can learn by the example of the Schaumburg Regional Airport, it’s that the size of the airport isn’t the only thing that can make it preferable to different sorts of pilots.
There are a total one hundred and nine different private aircraft based at the Schaumburg Regional Airport, in addition to the hundreds every year who visit from all around the country. Of those, eighty-seven percent are single engine planes – that’s ninety-seven aircraft total. Think about what that means – it demonstrates again the facts we’ve been speaking about thus far; namely, that the Schaumburg Regional Airport is an ideal airport for private pilots and small aircraft, thanks to its relatively calm and non-intimidating layout and size. Five percent of those aircraft, five aircraft, are multi-engine – most likely small private jets or corporate aircraft – and six percent are made up of seven helicopters based at the Schaumburg Regional Airport.
The Schaumburg Regional Airport is easily accessible by road, though it, of course, lacks many of the other types of transportation (such as bus and rail lines or car rental services) available at large international airports. If you plan on flying into the Schaumburg Regional Airport or trying to get to it, you’re going to need a ride. You can call a taxi, of course, but if you want to get into Chicago from the Schaumburg Regional Airport, you may be better off calling a friend – it’s a long drive, and taxi fares aren’t so cheap these days.
If you plan on driving yourself or giving directions to friends, you can find the Schaumburg Regional Airport at 905 West Irving Park Road . You can reach that address by the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway, easily accessible from Interstate 290. If you still need directions, just look up “Schaumburg Regional Airport, Chicago” on GoogleMaps, or a similar online map service to get detailed directions from your or your friend’s current location.
Many large airports exist primarily to move passengers and cargo around the country. O’Hare is one of these, and its size and complexity make it a very intimidating place to learn how to fly for the interested beginner. It’s for this reason that Schaumburg Regional Airport makes such an attractive alternative option for the amateur or beginning pilot. There are lessons available at the Schaumburg Regional Airport, so if you’re interested, go ahead and call the Schaumburg Regional Airport and see about signing up for lessons today. Piloting is a wonderful activity, and a great hobby enjoyed by thousands of enthusiasts across the country. If you’re very good, of course, it may even lead to more – what kind of life would be better than being paid well for piloting passenger airliners around the world?
There are plenty of great services available to pilots flying into the Schaumburg Regional Airport, and any plane in the area should make full use of them. A few of those services include ramp services, aircraft maintenance, charter services for those interested in flying, but not learning how to fly, and, of course, refueling operations. Pilots interested in buying fuel at the Schaumburg Regional Airport have two different options in order to give their aircraft whatever works best – both Jet A and 100 LL Fuels are available from the Schaumburg Regional Airport refueling services, so any visiting planes can take their pick.
Besides those basic services available for the aircraft at this airport, pilots in the area can refuel themselves as well – the Schaumburg Regional Airport offers a full sit-down restaurant called Pilot Pete’s, which is open seven days a week for both lunch and dinner. This is a perfect way to top off a long flight before the drive into the city. Imagine a long day of flying with nothing to eat except a couple of sandwiches; a landing, you’re feeling tired; it’s getting dark, and you still have a half-hour drive – nothing like having a good hot meal to tide you over.
There are plenty of other services offered by the Schaumburg Regional Airport, as various aviation companies and corporations are based out of the Schaumburg Regional Airport. All of these may be useful to different customers around your area or for yourself, especially if you don’t have your own plane or a pilot’s license, but still require a small engine aircraft or a helicopter for some sort of service.
News services, for example, get a large amount of use out of the Schaumburg Regional Airport and many of the aircraft based there. Charter aircraft and charter helicopter services rent out their aircraft and pilots to various news services around the city and the smaller communities outside Chicago. The smaller size makes for a faster takeoff time, making it easier for local news stations to get aircraft in the air quickly and get to the scene of a news event as it’s happening.
Many people think that an international airport is automatically more desirable simply because it is larger. They think that, for instance, a single engine plane would much rather land on a long, wide runway like those at Chicago O’Hare International than the smaller local and regional airports like the Schaumburg Regional Airport. That is, in some cases, true. The massive runways at O’Hare – designed to accept and field the largest aircraft in the world of modern aviation – are like entire fields to small engine planes, and they are about the easiest possible for new pilots to navigate.
The difference lies in the multitude of other details that most non-pilots don’t realize or recognize. Things like synchronizing takeoff and landing times with other aircraft, or communicating with airport control. All these things require a lot of knowledge and a multitude of different details for any prospective pilot to remember and follow. At a smaller regional airport like the Schaumburg Regional Airport, these factors are far less complex. Less planes make for less traffic, and less traffic makes for a far more relaxed atmosphere in general, especially for new or learning pilots. So, if you want to learn how to fly a plane or helicopter, or want to rent a charter plane to take a flyover tour of the Windy City or the surrounding area, consider using the Schaumburg Regional Airport. You’ll find that all these things add up to a great experience in a smaller airport.