Indianapolis, IN
Across the street from the ramp; walk through the FBO and you're there. Panoramic dining-room view of Eagle Creek Reservoir. Fresh seafood is the specialty, sourced from around the world, with prime steaks alongside. AOPA members voted it a top-10 airport restaurant in 2019. Pilots report the ramp fee is waived with a Rick's receipt; keep yours.
A 1954 Mountain View diner, built in New Jersey and shipped to Plainfield by rail. It served US 40, the old National Road, until it closed; Indiana Landmarks named it one of the state's 10 Most Endangered Buildings in 2010, and new owners hauled it four miles west, restored it, and reopened it in 2014. The only diner left on the National Road in Indiana. Hand-breaded Indiana tenderloin and handcrafted sodas are the calling cards; breakfast served all day, desserts made in house. Closes at 3 on Sundays.
Eagle Creek Airpark sits on the west side of Indianapolis at the edge of Eagle Creek Reservoir. The water is a 1969 creation; the dam on Eagle Creek flooded a valley Josiah K. Lilly Jr. had spent the 1930s through the 1950s assembling and reforesting as a private estate, and the park that opened around it in 1972 remains one of the largest municipal parks in the country. The field itself is Indianapolis Airport Authority property and works as a reliever for Indianapolis International; expect an FBO with fuel and a ramp shared by more than 80 based aircraft. Despite the shared name, the airpark and the park are separate operations; the shoreline beyond the ramp belongs to Indy Parks.
J.K. Lilly Jr. spent the 1930s through the 1950s buying up land along Eagle Creek and reforesting it into a private preserve; he gave it to Purdue in 1958, and after the creek's serious 1957 flood the city bought the land for a flood-control reservoir. The dam was finished in 1969, the park opened in 1972, and the result is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States: about 3,900 acres of woods wrapped around 1,400 acres of water, all inside the city limits.
Before the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was famous for racing, it was famous for aviation. In 1918, the U.S. Army opened an Aviation Repair Depot at the Speedway, repairing and testing JN-4 Jenny training aircraft and Liberty engines. The Speedway provided hangars and a flight test field — planes took off and landed on the infield and straightaways. The depot repaired 313 aircraft and 350 engines in 1918 alone. Italian engineers from the Pomilio Brothers Corporation developed aircraft here. Allison Experimental Company (later Allison Engine, now Rolls-Royce) got its start producing engine parts nearby. The Speedway's aviation chapter is largely forgotten, but it helped establish Indianapolis as an aviation and engine manufacturing hub.
Constructed in 1909, the first racing facility to call itself a speedway, and home of the Indianapolis 500 since 1911; it is still the highest-capacity sports venue in the world. The 2.5-mile oval's infield covers 253 acres; Churchill Downs, Yankee Stadium, the Rose Bowl, the Roman Colosseum, and Vatican City would all fit inside it at the same time, and four holes of the Brickyard Crossing golf course actually do. The track was bricked over in its first year; three feet of it survive as the Yard of Bricks at the start/finish line, the last of the surface that gave the Brickyard its name.
Two cultural anchors on the near-north side. Newfields is the 152-acre campus of the Indianapolis Museum of Art: the Lilly House, a National Historic Landmark estate with its formal Oldfields gardens, and the 100 Acres art and nature park, one of the largest contemporary art parks in the country, its sculptures set in woods and wetlands around a 35-acre lake. A few miles southeast, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis is the largest in the world: five floors, the Dinosphere dinosaur hall, Chihuly's 43-foot Fireworks of Glass tower, and the seasonal 7.5-acre Sports Legends Experience outside. Between these, Conner Prairie, and the Speedway, the city carries a deeper roster than its racing reputation suggests.