The Football Field Has Landed

By Louis in Miscellaneous on Mar 20, 2007 3:50PM

Aviation enthusiasts like Chicagoist are giddy with jet-fueled joy today as we are exactly 2 hours from the arrival of the world's largest commercial airliner. That gives you just enough time to jump on the blue line to O’Hare (we kid — you know we love you, CTA).

If you don’t follow aviation news (who doesn’t) you may not know that the Airbus A380 is huge — really huge. It has a wingspan of 261 feet and a length of almost 240 feet. For a point of reference, an NCAA Football Field is 300 feet long by 160 feet wide. So you couldn’t even park this thing in a football stadium. This massive bird carries 555 passengers on its two floors. The plane is so large that it will barely be able to maneuver at O’Hare, and will have to wait for the expansion project to finish before Lufthansa will fly Chicago to Frankfurt.

New York had a huge press event, and Los Angeles has scheduled a public viewing, but the for some infuriating reason, Chicago will not allow for any public viewing, and the Police Department has warned that people parking to take pictures will be ticketed. So unless you are already at O'Hare you can't even see it.

We aren’t telling you to break the law, but the people over at Jaunted sent us a brief explanation of the best way to get a glimpse of the Spruce Goose. It will cross Lake Michigan somewhere between Evanston and Waukegan for its landing at O’Hare at 12:50. This may be your best glimpse.

So who is looking forward to international flights with 555 screaming babies?

Image via Airbus.