MKE SPOTTING PART 2
Story and photographs by Scott Jankowski
We continue our look into the variety of unusual and unique visitors to my hometown airport, Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. As seen in part 1 of this article, Mitchell does get a fair share of unique visitors and special color schemes. The majority of commercial airline traffic seen at Mitchell is from Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines and Delta Connection Airlines. The predominate type of commercial aircraft to be seen is the Boeing 737 with several airlines utilizing the -700, -800, -900, and the -8MAX. The largest commercial aircraft to currently use Mitchell is the Boeing MD-11F. As mentioned, the most common bizjet to be seen is the Cessna Citation with all types seen owing to the Maintenance base at Mitchell. The venerable Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker is most common military type aircraft to be seen due to the locally based Wisconsin Air National Guard unit.
Mitchell will never be overly busy owing to its close proximity to Chicago O’Hare, however Mitchell is one of primary diversion airports when weather becomes a factor at O’Hare and Midway. The majority of diversion traffic we see is typically American, American Eagle, Southwest, United, or United Express but we will occasionally see more exotic airlines or widebody aircraft divert here. The annual Milwaukee Air and Water Show as well as the EAA AirVenture Fly-in up at Oshkosh will always bring a good selection of interesting aircraft into Mitchell. Winters are typically brutal in this area, every Winter season will see Funjet and Apple Vacations use a variety of aircraft, typically leased from a European airline to offer charter service to Mexico and the Caribbean. Mitchell will also see a fair amount of sports charters with several professional teams and colleges located here.
