Quad City International Airport, Illinois by David T. CoopmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you grew up within 50 miles of the Quad Cities, attending elementary school in the 60s or 70s, you probably had multiple field trips to the Quad Cities Airport. It was the most visited location through my elementary years, along with Monkey Island in Davenport. It was memorable for two things. One was the tower, which you only rarely got to visit. I remember guys in short sleeve button up white shirts talking about air traffic. But the most memorable part of the airport was the viewing lounge. I remember it had a multi-story wall of windows onto the runways, with ramps and lots of wood. It was a big room, and the glass wall was one of a kind from what I had seen. It must have had an impact on me, as I went to college for aerospace engineering, after watching those big planes land. Or at least you saw them unload – there wasn’t all that many. Nor were they that big in the era of Ozark. This book provides some explanation for why this became one of the bigger draws for field trips. Ends up Moline had a long history as an airfield, and had a knock-down, drag-out battle with Davenport to be the home of the one allowed QC airport by the feds. This book describes that fight, and you can feel the local boosterism that helped build the airport into something you’d want to get your kids used to seeing. This is mostly a book of photos, and my favorites are the ones of that viewing area, which sadly no longer exists.
The book covers the airport from its genesis in the biplane era through various rebuilds in recent years. Of key interest in the book is the description of the local airplane manufacturing companies, including world-renown racing planes by Monocoupe, later bought by local auto manufacturer Velie. These local products brought test pilots and racing pilots to the airport, as well as record breakers. For a while, the record for a woman’s highest altitude flight was from this airport. Quite interesting history that I’d never heard before.
Another interesting story was that a famous race pilot for the Monocoupe company team named Jonathan Livingston often flew out of the airport. Ends up the famous Richard Bach book of the 70s “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” was based in part on this fearless flyer.
In summary, this is a good book for those interested in the history of the QC Airport. Because the airport was also key to the local aviation industry, those with a more general interest in aviation history may also find this of interest to peruse.
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