Susan Dacy is the only female civilian pilot in this weekend’s Chicago Air and Water Show.
But she’s quick to point out that there’s at least one woman flying a military plane.
She’s seen female representation in aviation improve over her career. Dacy just retired as a captain for American Airlines at the mandatory age of 65. She sees women pilots “more and more,” she said.
“I think that’s getting to be an old anecdote. I think you’d be hard-pressed to walk down a concourse and not see women pilots,” she says.
Dacy spoke Thursday from Gary/Chicago International Airport, where the airshow’s planes gathered ahead of the show on Saturday and Sunday.
The event runs from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days from Fullerton to Oak streets, with North Avenue Beach as the show’s center.
Dacy’s 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane may not be the fastest aircraft in the show, but that’s part of the show’s appeal, she says.
“This show has such a contrast,” she says, naming off the high-tech military aircraft and modern planes.
“Then I kick it all the way back when aviation got its start,” she says.
Other acts include the Air Force Thunderbirds — six F-16 fighter jets — which are performing for the first time since 2018, in place of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels.
There’s also the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team, a P-51 Mustang, four A-10 Thunderbolts, two F-18s and a KC-135E Stratotanker, among other planes.
The show was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was held in 2021 with only the Blue Angels. This is the second year the show has returned with a full lineup.
Chicago’s air show is unique because it’s bigger than most and is held over water, Dacy says.
It’s also unique because it’s held over North Avenue Beach, miles from the airport where pilots takeoff in Gary.
“You’re always thinking to yourself, what if that engine quit?” Dacy says. But then she’s reassured by the presence of the U.S. Coast Guard and other safety plans.
Dacy grew up working at her dad’s airport in Harvard — a town near Rockford, and about 5 miles south of the Wisconsin border.
She cleaned the office and filled gas tanks, and slowly became enamored with flying. It became her destiny after seeing an airshow as a kid.
I “saw the big, loud, smoky biplane, and I knew that I really aspired to do that someday,” Dacy says.
Her father restored antique planes like to the one she now flies. Her brother, Dave Dacy, trained in aerobatics in one of those planes, then began doing airshows with a wing walker.
When she got a steady job as a pilot with American Airlines in the 1990s, Dacy felt she had the time to do airshows as well — although without a wing walker.
“I’m happy just to be my solo self,” she says. “I’ve had wing walkers certainly approach. But I’ll leave that to others.”
Her plane, which she calls “Big Red, was built to train military cadets in World War II. They would have 10 hours of flying to prove themselves before moving onto fighters or bombers, she says.
Her plane’s previous owner, who also flew in airshows, doubled its power to 450 horsepower. That lets her easily perform aerobatics, like her barnstorming routine, which consists of barrel rolls and hammerheads.
To create the smoke she injects a light oil from a 15-gallon tank into the plane’s burning-hot exhaust system, which vaporizes it, she said.
The smoke smells like something coming off a griddle, she says. “Actually, in a pinch at airshows, I have used cooking oil in there,” Dacy says.
Other acts this weekend include aerobatics pilot Rob Holland and his all-carbon-fiber MXS propeller plane. Holland doesn’t call his aerobatics “stunts,” he says, “because I know what the results are.”
KC-135E Stratotanker pilot Patrick Burke took his massive jet on a flight over Chicago on Thursday afternoon. As a Cubs fan and Schaumburg native, Burke said his favorite view is of Wrigley Field. “Usually we spend all of our time a lot higher,” he says. He called the skyline a “pretty spectacle.”
The Golden Knights are scheduled to drop from smaller, faster parachutes carrying a large flag, for the first time, and land on a pinpoint spot at North Avenue Beach both Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
The Thunderbirds arrived in Gary on Thursday afternoon. Their flight times will be announced the morning of the shows.
