Three generations of the Mendez family from Gurnee came to Waukegan’s Northern Illinois Airshow, including the youngest, fifth grader Sofia Mendez, who hopes to be a pilot when she grows up.
“I feel like I want to be in the sky like them,” Sofia said as she watched plane after plane perform tricks in the skies above. “This is awesome.”
Looking at a red biplane nearby and learning it was flown in the show by Susan Dacy, a retired American Airlines pilot with 40,000 hours in the air to her credit, Aurora Mendez, Sofia’s mother, said Dacy was an inspiration.
“I’d like to see more female pilots,” Mendez said. “They’re an inspiration to my daughter and a lot of others.”
Another three-generation family at the show included Scott Randall of Beach Park, a corporate jet pilot, his son, Trevor of Troy, Wisconsin, and his son Ryder, 2. Based on Ryder’s frequent references to his grandfather, they had to bring him to the show.
“Every time he hears a plane, he looks up and says, ‘Is that Grandpa?’” Trevor said.
The Mendezes and the Ryders were among more than 10,000 people who came to the Northern Illinois Airshow Saturday and Sunday at the Waukegan National Airport to watch planes ranging from U.S Navy Fighter jets to decades-old biplanes in flight.
Dacy said she was first motivated to fly as she literally grew up on the Dacy Airport in Harvard started by her father on farmland there. She was touched by the comments from Sofia and her mother.
“One of the reasons I do what I do is for kids to see it,” she said. “After I fly (in the show), I talk to the kids and their families. I can see the excitement in their faces. If I inspire just one, it is worthwhile.”
Skip Goss, the airport general manager and airshow organizer, said inspiring young people not just to fly but to become part of the aviation and aerospace industry — from flying, to engineering, to plane maintenance — is part of the purpose of the show.
“We want kids to imagine and shoot for the stars,” he said. “The snow is a community event. We want to honor the nation and the armed forces. We want them to remember what they saw.”
Along with more than 10,000 who purchased tickets to put their portable lawn chairs along the runway and watch the show unfold in front of them, hundreds more sat in places like Bevier Park on Yorkhouse Road in Waukegan to get a glimpse of the aircraft doing stunts overhead. Chairs lined the roadway and other nearby streets.
Those watching from the outside did not have the opportunity to look at the planes and talk to the pilots before the show began at noon. The gates opened at 9:30 a.m., and people like the Randalls got to touch the planes and go inside some.
Pilots like Brian Jenkins stood outside the private jet he flies for a charter aircraft company as a long line of people waited to ascend the stairs to the plane and get a look inside. Flying faster than the commercial airlines, he said his job takes him to many places around the world. His favorite place is the Caribbean Islands.
“I never know where I’m going until a few days before,” Jenkins said.
One of the most popular planes over the weekend was a pair of U.S. Navy EA-18 G Growlers, a form of the F-18 fighter jets. Keith Bradley of Gurnee said he was excited to see them at the end of the show.
“I came here to see the F18s,” Bradley said. “I like seeing what they can do in the sky. I like it when the fly in loops and get close to the ground upside down.”
