Man Lands Plane on Golf Course So Son Can Play Tennis

By Margaret Lyons in News on Mar 4, 2008 5:01PM

Hey, dad, can you give me a ride? Oh, you want to be a brief media sensation? Then yeah, a ride in your plane is cool, too.

Aaaaand scene. Robert Kadera maybe heard something similar from his son this weekend because Kadera decided the best way to get his 14-year-old kid to a tennis date was for them to hop in his 1949 Piper Clipper and fly there. He landed the little plane on a golf course at the Marriott Lincolnshire, at which point anxious local residents called the police. Landing your plane wherever you want? Not totally legal.

It's not clear what Kadera expected to happen. From the Trib:

"We're all pretty dumbfounded," Lincolnshire Police Chief Randy Melvin said Monday. "I don't have any idea what the guy was thinking. ..... He was going to park his plane across the street like nobody would notice."

The Trib reports Kadera's son was going to play tennis with a friend, but other media outlets are saying it was a tennis lesson. Perhaps it was both. And while we understand the urgency of training for the JV tennis team, is that really worth landing just 20 feet from a highway? Hint: no. No, it is not.

The FAA is investigating, and Kadera may be charged with trespassing. He should at least be charged with criminal idiocy and setting a bad example. But if you're way jealous of his antics, you can get your own 1949 Piper Clipper for around $22K. [Trib, Daily Herald, Sun-Times]