Chanute Air Museum

Chanute Air Museum is located on the site of the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, IL and was, when open, touted as Illinois' largest aviation museum.

The museum closed in 2015. Although its Website is no longer operating, it does live on at archive.org's Wayback Machine.

The museum was originally scheduled to close on December 30, 2015, and I scheduled a visit in late September. When I arrived there were crews from several other aviation museums, disassembling planes to prepare them for transport. Inquiring at the front desk, I found that the museum's closing date had been moved up to October 31, although was had not been announced on the Website or Facebook page. A number of artifacts (including the B-52 cockpit trainer, which I had hoped to extensively document) had already been transferred to other museums.

While the visit was somewhat disappointing due to the removal of exhibits, I was able to photograph parts of the museum's P-51H Mustang and B-25 Mitchell in the state of disassembly, providing seldom-seen views of aircraft components.

The museum's most impressive aircraft is their XB-47, the second B-47-type aircraft built and the oldest surviving craft.

The local PBS station profiled the museum in an episode of Illinois Stories.

Aerial view.