Ear on Chicago; Cleared For Takeoff: O'Hare Field

To do the story of Chicago's newest airport, O 'Hare Field, we take our tape recorder out to the field and go up on top of one of the new fingers of the new terminal building and look out over the field. Here at O 'Hare Field, we're standing on the south finger of the passenger terminal building. By coming out here, we can see the airport in its entirety, practically in its entirety. For right in front of us, our airlines from several different airplanes, from several different airlines. For example, right down here, below us, is a capital airlines by -count preparing for take -off. In just a few moments, you will hear that distinctive whine of the by -count engine as it gets warmed up and ready for the aircraft to go out and take off. Over to the right is another capital airlines by -count that just arrived a few moments ago. To the left is a TWA constellation that arrived just a few moments ago. Farther away from us, we can see the slick airways and the riddle airways. And right beside

one of the large planes belonging to riddle airways is the tower standing high in the air and painted against the sky. It's a beautiful morning to be talking about an airfield and standing up here, it's a beautiful sight indeed. Off to our right is the large northwest southeast runway. Mr. Ralph Heinze, the supervisor of the airport, is standing right next to me. And we're going to talk a little bit out here on top of this building about O 'Hare Field. And then we're going to go inside of the terminal building to tell the story of one of the airlines, how a passenger buys a ticket, gets aboard the aircraft, and takes off for his destination. Now in just a few moments you're going to be hearing that capital airlines warming up. And I'm not very seriously whether we'll be able to do much talking while it is warming up and getting ready to take off. So we may record just a little bit of that sound and then await until it's ready to leave or has left so that Mr. Heinze and I can talk.

But in the meantime we have a few minutes here and we're looking now Mr. Heinze at a map. And I'd like for you to describe to us the physical characteristics, the boundaries of the O 'Hare Field. Well, O 'Hare Field covers approximately 10 square miles. It is bounded on the north by 2e Avenue on the west by York Road and on the south by Irving Park Road. Then it goes as far east as Sioux Line tracks, which is east of Mannheim Road. All in all it covers approximately 6 ,500 acres. 10 square miles makes it the largest municipal airport in the world. Is that right? That is right. Of course, as everyone knows, O 'Hare Field is not yet completed. It's in the struggling phase right now trying to get completed. It's in what is called or in between what are called initial stage and

stage number two. At my count is getting ready to warm up here. I'm not sure that we'll be able to talk much longer. I said that you're in between the initial stage, which was opened up here about a year ago. And stage number two, that's correct, isn't it? That is right. So tell us a little bit about what stage two will be when it's completed. Stage two will, first of all, the completion of our new northwest southeast runway. A runway which is 8 ,000 feet long. Then we are in the process of the construction of a new taxiway, which is 7 ,000 feet long, and which connect our east -west runway and our secondary northwest southeast runway. I'm afraid I'm going to have to interrupt right now. You can hear that bike count warming up and it's getting ever louder. The wind of those engines gets rather loud while the aircraft is sitting on the ground. Once it gets in the air, of course, they're very quiet.

Listen to it for just a minute. Well, we don't have time to record the entire warm -up procedure here. So we're going to shut off the tape recorder, and we'll be back in just a minute. And talk tomorrow to Mr. Hinesy after this airplane. He's out of the way. Well, Mr. Hinesy, that bike count is ready to taxi out under the apron and away it goes out towards the runway, and it's on its way. Now, let's get back here into the physical property of the airport. As I said earlier in the introduction, we're standing on what is known as the soft finger of the passenger terminal building. Now, actually, there will be four fingers when the terminal building is completed, isn't that correct? Well, there is actually two fingers

to reach individual terminal building. However, the two terminal buildings are connected together and there will, of course, be four fingers. Well, there will be two terminal buildings in. That is right, although, actually, we shall say that one half of this major building is now complete. Now, we're quite a good deal into stage number two. So let's turn over here and see a little bit about the future of a hair field. We turn over to stage number three. Could you describe that to us? Generally speaking, the stage three will call for the construction of a new east -west runway. This runway will be comparable to the present runway, which we have just constructed. That is to the northwest and southeast, insofar as both of these runways will be able to handle

any aircraft which we can see forecast for the future. In other words, the 120, 130 passenger jet aircraft that are to be delivered approximately in 1959 will be able to use this airport when they are put in use. How long will those runways be? The present runway is 8 ,000 feet long. That is the present new northwest southeast runway will be 8 ,000 feet in length. And the east -west will be 8 or 10 ,000 feet depending upon the design of the aircraft. Now, once again, let's turn this page and look at a future map that's even further in the future. And this is the completion, isn't it? Or this is the completion of the airport here? Yes, that is right. That is the ultimate plan of the airport. And of course, at that time, it calls

for a group of six tangential runways which surround the central terminal area. And as you said, there will be two terminal buildings. Now, let's take a look at what we can see right now. As I said, O 'Hare Field is in the initial stages. It's struggling to be completed. And we can look out into a tremendous area to the left and then, of course, behind us. Now, let's start out in front of us first. Over here is the tower. Will that always be there? Yes, that is our permanent new tower. And it is quite adequate for the operation and control of aircraft on the airport. Right in front of us is a tremendous concrete apron. How much area does that include? The aprons surrounding the passenger terminal building and cover approximately 45 acres. And the aprons are constructed to take any aircraft design of the future. All right. Then off to the right,

they have the taxiways to that northwest southeast runway. The boundary lines of O 'Hare Field are far off to the south out there, are they not? They are the white standards which you see are south of Irving Park Road. Now, off to the right is the runway. And then over here, we're turning completely around and looking out to the northwest. What's that equipment over there? That is the 800 ,000 gallon fuel tank reservoir. Further out there are some red trucks and a little while ago, we saw some orange trucks moving gravel across a road out there. What's going on? That is the equipment being used in the construction of the new 7 ,000 foot taxiway, which will go from the east -west runway to our older northwest southeast runway. This taxiway will benefit us to a great extent because it will facilitate the moving of the scheduled aircrafts across the

airport. Now, right over here to our right is another finger I assume of the terminal building. That is right. It is the north finger of the passenger terminal building. What are those antenna up above the building? Are those belong to the airlines? No, the antenna are radios transmitting from the control tower. Oh, I see. And then there's a hanger over there farther above and beyond that north finger. Is that just one of a few hangers that you already have? That particular hanger services a corporate and private aircraft and is for that purpose alone. A new hanger area to the northwest, that is to the northwest side of the field, is now being set aside for hanger areas where the scheduled airlines will build their own hangers. Mr. Heinzi, I think what

we ought to do now, I think we've described most of the physical characteristics that we can see on this beautiful sunshiney morning. And we've talked pretty much about what's going to be done physically with the airport in the future. Now, I'd like to go back into the terminal building and we want to tell the story a little more completely by taking a passenger, putting him on one of the airlines, one of the aircraft belonging, I think, to United as the story we're going to do. And actually go into the tower, perhaps, and record some of that information between the tower and the aircraft and talk to the traffic control manager, whoever that is. So if you don't mind, I'd like to go back into the terminal building now. That's fine. We'll do that directly. Let's do that jet flying up there. Two jets are ready to take off over on the runway that we were describing to you a little while ago. Mr. Heinzi, who do those jets fall off to?

Those are Air Force jets, F -86s. What do you have here, one wing of the airports, do you have out here in O 'Hare? It's an interseparate group, defending the situation part. They go out of line. They do on takeoff. Well, that's about as much time as we have to listen to jets. It's a beautiful picture indeed to see those silver jets taking off going on to the northeast. After they get off the runway, they go upstairs in an awful hurry. And there they go. All right, back to the terminal building. We've come into the terminal building now, and we're standing right in front of the ticket counter of United Airlines. Actually, to describe the physical characteristics of the terminal, we're going to call on Mr. Heinzi. But I want to tell you just briefly that when passengers come out to O 'Hare Field, it's somewhat different. It's somewhat probably

a gross understatement. It's a great deal different from Midway. For example, this passenger lobby that we're standing in right now is one of the most well -lighted rooms in the city of Chicago. The passengers come up an escalator into this beautiful room, and in front of them they can see all of the booths where the different airlines are located. First of all, and to the left is American Airlines, followed by Eastern, and then past the Eastern Airlines ticket booth, is Marshall Field and Company's restaurant, followed by Marshall Field and Company's cocktail lounge. And then down to the right there is Capital Airlines. There's another one I can't make out, Northwest Airlines, Transworld Airlines, TWA, and where we're standing now, United Airlines. And then to our right, and a little bit behind us is Delta, and North Central Airlines, and Braniff Airways. Now, Mr. Heinzi, these are not all of the airlines that you will have here eventually, is that

true? That is right. In the very near future, we will have two international carriers operating from O 'Hare Field. And what are they? Pan -American World Airways will commence operations here on the 7th of October, and on the 5th of October, the reall, Aerovias Airlines of Brazil. And what other airlines domestically do you have coming on here? We have two freight airlines at the moment, Riddle and Slick Airways. Now, Mr. Heinzi, I said I'd leave it up to you to describe the physical characteristics of this room, and as I said, it's very well -lighted. And one of the reasons is this ceiling seems like the entire ceiling is lit up. How do you get that effect? Well, it is an egg -grade ceiling with a background of fluorescent lights. Actually, the entire ceiling is light. The area of the room itself is one acre. The area of the lights is one acre. Then, moving down from the ceiling, of course, you have these tall

columns all over the place, but certainly rather unobtrusive. And then, on the floor, which is what? The floor is Tarazo. And it's a gray, sort of a gray and white. And then you have gray chairs sitting around the lobby and a great number of them. As at the moment, they're not very well filled. And we were talking earlier about the passenger traffic out here. And although it isn't grayed at the moment, you certainly anticipated in the coming years that as at Midway, these chairs will all be filled all during the day, probably. That is right. Well, now, I think we better get into a more specific part of our story. And that is the actual flight of a passenger. And as I said earlier, we would pick out United Airlines. So, Mr. Heinzi, I'm going to walk over here to the ticket booth of United Airlines and talk to Jim Hale. Jim, we had a passenger that we're going to talk to a little bit later. Come in through here and purchase a ticket on a nonstop flight to San Francisco.

We're going to talk to that lady a little bit later down at the gate. She's already departed for there. But I'd like to ask you just a few questions about the procedure here. Now, she stepped up to the ticket booth. I'll call it. Perhaps you have another name for this counter. And ask for a nonstop flight to San Francisco. Now, how did that all come about that she actually got that ticket? Well, as I understand it, the passenger's name is Mrs. Nicola, who is making her first flight today. Yes, that's right. And she made her reservations by telephone to our downtown reservations office. And her ticket was purchased here at O 'Hare Field. How many flights do you have going to San Francisco each day? We have just two at the present time, both of which are nonstop flights. Now, she was booked on flight 501. Why did she take that particular flight? I would imagine it's because she preferred a daylight flight

that's particularly true of people who haven't flown a great deal. They seem to prefer to fly during the daylight hours. What time does that flight leave? It leaves at 11 .55 a .m. And it arrives in San Francisco at what time? At 4 .35 p .m. What sort of an aircraft is that? That's a DC -6 mainliner with an air coach configuration. Well, thank you very much, Jim. I think that pretty much wraps up the story for here. But before we go down to talk to our passenger down at Gate B3, I want to talk to John Cursey, who is a passenger service manager for United Airlines, here at O 'Hare Field. John, why does United have a rather large service out here at O 'Hare? As I understand it, United has more service here than other airlines at O 'Hare Field. Well, of course you, United is the biggest carrier out of Chicago, and we've brought a proportionate share of our schedule operation out to O 'Hare Field. And we also feel that it's going to be necessary to move forward swiftly in the development of this new facility. As you know,

Chicago is the crossroads of the air traffic world, as well as the railroads. And air business is building every year, bigger and bigger. Our spaces at Midway are cramped. And in fact, I believe we could probably operate more schedules through Chicago if we had an opportunity to handle more airplanes at the busy time. John, I know that you're going to have some jets before long, and you'll be bringing them out here, of course, won't you? Oh, absolutely. This is going to be the airport where the large jet transports operate from. And that's another reason we're interested in developing O 'Hare Field. When we talk about 120 or 130 passengers, airplanes, we need room, more room, than we have at Midway. There's something coming over. I think that's our flight. Was that our flight? Yes, they're now calling flight 501 to San Francisco. And Mrs. Nicola, I believe her name is, will have to go on down and board

now. Well, we're going down there to the gate and meter. And John, we want to thank you very much for allowing us to come up here and look over your ticket -selling operation and talk to you. It's certainly been a pleasure. We have come now to gate B3 where our passenger, Mrs. Joseph Nicola, is about ready to board flight 501 United Airlines, which is a non -stop to San Francisco. Now, we'd like to talk to our passenger just briefly about her trip and what she's going to do. Mrs. Nicola, is this your first plane trip? Yes, it is. Are you worried about it at all? No, not at all. Why did you decide to come out to O 'Hare Field instead of going over to Midway? Well, it's closer to where I live. Where do you live? In Rogers Park, 1125 Loyola Avenue. I see. Now, what are you going to San Francisco for? For my son's wedding. Oh, well, that's a wonderful occasion. When's he going to be married? October the

6th. This Saturday? This Saturday. Well, you're certainly looking forward to something like that, I'm sure. Well, it's quite exciting. I have never met the bride. Why have you never traveled by air before? I had never had any occasion, too. I see. Well, I know that you're looking forward to this. This is Mr. Nicola over here, and I'll talk to him just briefly. Have you ever traveled by air, sir? No, sir, I have not. You're not making this trip with your wife? No, I'm not. Well, it's a shame that you can't see your son get married on this occasion. Well, it is, but it's just one of those things. I could not arrange my business affairs to get away. And this is your daughter over here? Yes. You're not going either. No, I've got to go to school. Oh, well, that's a shame. Well, we want to thank you, Mrs. Nicola, and I know that you're looking forward to the wedding, and you say you haven't met the bride before? No, I haven't. Well, then you're looking forward also to meeting her. Quite an occasion. Yes, it certainly is. Well, we hope you have a wonderful flight, and I'm sure you will. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, Mrs. Nicola and the rest of the passengers are just about ready to leave and board the aircraft, and flight 501 will be in the air in the matter

of moments. So in order to tell the story of just how the aircraft will be moving out on the runway, let's go up to the tower and talk to the person who is in charge of traffic control here at O 'Hare Field. Our next stop then will be at the tower. We're standing in the tower now, and we're getting ready to record the conversation between the tower, operator, and the aircraft, the pilot, of Flight 501 going to San Francisco. So let's listen to that a little while later, we'll talk to George Niles, the controller up here. Oh, aircraft control, United 501, IFRS San Francisco over. United 501 is cleared to runway 3 -2 left to win Northwest 20, altimeter 3003, time check 55 -1 -1 -half, taxi west off the map, and then southeast of on the terminal over. United

501, ATC clears you to the San Francisco Airport. Direct Sycamore, Victor 172 Des Moines, Flight Plan Route. Maintain a 20 ,000, maintain VFR until pass Sycamore over. Oh, United 501, cleared to the San Francisco Airport via Direct Sycamore. Victor 172 Des Moines, Flight Plan Route, maintain. 20 ,000, maintain VFR until via Sycamore over. Parents, quick, United 501, change to 118 -1 -4 -takeoff over. Well, that said, they're clear for takeoff, and in just a few moments they'll be on their way. Now let's talk to George Niles, who is in charge of this operation up here, and what you just heard sounded probably rather complicated, and perhaps George can explain just a few of the things that the tower operator

has to contend with up here. We've been standing here for a few moments watching some aircraft land and some takeoff, and for a layman to come up here and look, George, it gets a little bit complicated at times. Now just exactly what happened here. The tower operator was talking to our pilot, and there were a number of symbols that I didn't quite catch. What did he say to him? Well, on that United 501, that's the United Airlines trip number. The plane is in route to San Francisco, and he called for taxi instructions, which they must do prior to leaving the gate to get a clearance to taxi out to the active runway, and this clearance that was given to him is airway clearance. He was cleared to the San Francisco airport, and that is direct to Sycamore, which is an intersection out here west of Chicago, about 40 miles. Victor 172 is a Victor airway, a VR airway, and the number is 172, which all airways are

designated by numbers. And Des Moines flight plan route is so that we don't have to go through the verbiage of giving all checkpoints and routes. His flight plan was approved as filed, and his altitude was maintained 20 ,000 feet, a file for 20 ,000 feet, and he was to maintain VFR until past Sycamore, which is visual flight rules. This tower operator that was kind enough to allow us to record that conversation. What was his name, George? Leo Alsberger. Now, Leo handles the plane, as I understand it, until it gets out to the active runway, and then it's picked up by another tower operator. Is that right? That is correct. That present he is working what we call the ground control position. Now, who is the man that takes over after the plane reaches this point that where we are now? That will be Mr. Burke, who is now working the local control position. He in turn controls all aircraft with relation to landings and takeoffs. He controls all the aircraft in the air in the vicinity of the airport, and when traffic permits,

clears other aircraft for departure. Well, George, we want to thank you very much for allowing us to come up here and listen in in the conversation. Our aircraft has taken off and is on its way to San Francisco, and that's just about wraps up our program. But there's one or two questions I'd like to know personally, because I used to do a little flying overseas, and listen to the tower operators control all the traffic, and sometimes in bad weather, they'd stack us up to 17 ,000, 18 ,000 feet every 500 feet there'd be an aircraft. How do the boys keep all this in mind? How do they remember everything? Well, we have what we call flight progress strips. All the information is put on these strips in an abbreviated manner, whereby we can follow through and keep in sequence at all times, and of course, the aircraft at the lower altitude is vectored in first for the ILS, and other aircraft are stepped down at the secondary holding fixes to the lower altitudes, and then vectored over to the ILS course, which is an instrument landing system. Sounds complicated to us, but I suppose it's rather simple when it gets into your fellow's

imaginations. After considerable training and experience, it becomes quite easy. We do have considerable amount of complications when we get an aircraft that's lost in the area, which stops all traffic. Well, George is a bright, clear day to day, and traffic is not too heavy, but I can certainly look forward, and I'm sure that you can, too, to the day when you will have not so bright a day, and you'll have a lot of traffic coming out here. Are you looking forward to that? Yes, I have been for quite some time. I know you've been with this airport since when, since 1946. That's when Mr. Hainsey was here, too. Well, we want to thank you again, George, for talking to us. I think that's just about going to wrap up our program. Once again, thanks for allowing us to come up to the tower. Yes, sir, you're welcome. Mr. Hainsey, I must thank you, sir, for being our guide on the program, and telling us about our airfield. There are many, many other aspects that we'd like to talk about, but, of course, time does not permit. We do want to thank you very much, sir, for taking this tour of our airfield with us, and telling us about one of the greatest airports in the nation, and, in some day, will

be the largest airport in the world. Thank you very much, sir. Yes, indeed, and I'm very happy that you're able to tell a story. And that's the story of a airfield. This is Hugh Hill speaking.