Driving Tour to Chanute Air Museum

By Ron Steck

On July 20th we took a tour to the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, IL.  Members that were on the tour included John Judge - ‘50 Convertible, Joe Serritella - ‘41 Coupe, Stan Stack - ‘53 Tudor, Ken Bounds - ‘36 Roadster, Joe Kozmic - ‘37 Coupe, Sam Van Bruggen - ‘40 Coupe, John and Este Scheve - modern, Ron Blum and son David - modern, John Slobodnik and son John - ‘54 Fordor, Dan Pudelek - ‘53 Victoria, Roger Hunz - ‘51 Tudor, John Emmering - ‘51 Fordor, Frank and Phyllis Madrigali - modern, and Tom O’Donnell - ‘40 Mercury.

We met at White Fence Farm and took off on our three and a half hour adventure.  We stopped for lunch in Rantoul at the Red Wheel Restaurant.  After lunch we headed over to the Chanute Air Museum where we were given a guided tour around the hanger as well as outside.  The base was a pilot training base during WW2 and then became an aircraft maintenance missile training base with ground equipment as well as well as refueling.

I myself was stationed at Chanute from Nov 1971 - Jan 1972 for my training to be a Egress Systems repair man which are ejections seats.  I had not been back for 42 years until this trip.  We made our way back home along several routes after a great weather day and touring the air museum.