Poplar Grove Airport

Poplar Grove Airport: Where Flying is Fun

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Pilot Ken Starzyk flies his 1930 biplane over the grass landing strip at Poplar Grove Airport, to the delight of admiring fans. (Jon McGinty photo).

From its beginning as the first airport in Boone County, to being named the 2015 Best Private Airport in Illinois, Poplar Grove Airport has earned a unique reputation among aviators, both locally and worldwide.

Located on Illinois Rt. 76, a few miles north of Belvidere, Poplar Grove Airport doesn’t look like what we’ve come to expect at a modern airport. There are no cyclone fences topped with barbed wire surrounding the field, no air traffic control towers, no terminal, no armed guards, no commercial jets or corporate airplanes roaring off into the blue.

Instead, what you see are lots of hangars, several with a vintage look, and lots of small planes landing and taking off on the grass, some with two wings strung with wires, all propeller-driven; many are older than their pilots. Depending on the timing of your visit, you might see families with kids sitting in the grass watching the airplanes, or lined up to get a ride – many for the first time – into the beckoning sky. Welcome to the way flying used to be…aviation for the pure fun of it! [Read more…]

A History Of Poplar Grove Airport

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Silence…………………………………………….. nothing but the hum of my Continental O-300 and the wind rushing over my windscreen as the Earth creeps up beneath my feet. Just at that tranquil moment where separation between earth and craft seems infinitesimally close, my ear discerns the whine of the stall horn and the seat of my pants feels the mains start to roll.

The silence is broken by my scream of victory as I execute a perfect landing that is far too infrequent. The moment is short-lived as I clean up my bird, pour on the coals, and feel the wheels release their grip from the runway again…………and again, enter into the quiet.

This is how I spent my summer evenings back in the mid 90s, left turns in the sky over Belvidere Airport (C77) where radio calls are not required and where the thunderous silence of one and their machine can be enjoyed uninterrupted.

The real story here is how the airport evolved from a quiet airport with 30-40 aircraft to a thriving community with approximately 400 aircraft, 202 hangars, and 100 residential homes complete with runway access. [Read more…]