ORD = orchard farm

jessica and i REUNITED at the O'hare airport. AND IT'S HER BIRTHDAY! happy 20th J!
it seems that every airline had delays into chicago because of a crazy "this is not typical" rainstorm. on top of being delayed, we had to wait for nik's luggage that came on a later flight. finally he retrieved his thins, we rendezvous'd (i think i made the past-tense up) with our ride and drove through a lighting and thunderstorm to the Holiday Inn in Wheaton.


have you ever wondered why the chicago airport uses the abbreviation ORD? i was told two stories: some tradition holds that it was an ordinance during the first or second world war and another tradition holds that it was an orchard farm. dave thinks it was an orchard farm...


From ABE (Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton, Pennsylvania) to ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland), airports around the world are universally known by a unique three-letter code: the "Location Identifier" in aviation-speak. It's obviously much easier for pilots, controllers, travel agents, frequent flyers, computers and baggage handlers to say and write ORD than the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois—but how did this practice start, and why are some airport codes easy to understand (ABE and ZRH) while others seem to make absolutely no sense (ORD)?

This system of identifying airports caught on quickly and soon expanded to include all radio navigation aids used by pilots. This system of identifying airports caught on quickly and soon expanded to include all aviation radio navigation aids. The VOR on the field at ORD sends out the Morse code for ORD. Recently some VORs not located at the airport of the same name changed identifiers to prevent possible confusion. The clearance "cross 10 miles south of Chattanooga" was confusing when the airport and VOR were five miles apart. FAA surprisingly didn't try to change the name of the city but changed the VOR, resulting in the Chattanooga Airport (CHA) and the Choo Choo VOR (GCO)!

Oh, still wondering about the world's busiest airport, O'Hare International, and its ORD code? Well once upon a time, before the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Colonel Robert McCormick suggested a name change as tribute to pilot Lt. Cmdr. Edward "Butch" O'Hare, United States Navy, there was an airstrip well to the northwest of Chicago with a quaint, peaceful name—Orchard Field.

by dave



DONORS: we had a meeting, buuuuuut we weren't given any info about our Germany trip, in the notebooks we were each given there's a "Germany" section, but it only includes a map of the country and a sheet of facts. 99% literacy rate and 11.6% unemployment rate. grrrrrrrrreat. there's an extensive schedule for the week here in Chicago - a lot of activities and training and fellowship. im going to choose one night a week for the next couple months to send out updates about my trip... right now I'm thinking Sunday nights. in Germany, though, I may have to play it by ear.

curfew is in 20 minutes. lights out, no tv, no phones, and - it didn't say - but i'm assuming no posting either.