Welcome to the Indianapolis International Airport!
You may be thinking "that is an odd way to spell Cardinal." The sculpture you are at is named Cardinalis and it symbolizes Indiana's state bird, the cardinal, and pays homage to aviation pioneers, Orville and Wilbur Wright. Most people that travel through the Indianapolis airport don't even realize that this sculpture is here. I am one of those people. I have been near this spot countless times but never stopped to take a look at some of the sculptures. That is why you are here.
The picture above is of the real F-14 fighter plane wing that was used to make the sculpture. The sculpture itself was installed in 2008 when the new Indianapolis Airport opened. The artist, John Van Alstine, really summed up the sculpture with this quote from his website:
The physical shape, positioning and color of Cardinalis, with its uplifting, sweeping and graceful energy, is itself a metaphor for the act of flying . The delicate and relatively small area where it "touches down" not only gives the work great physical drama and visual excitement , it also is symbolic of the skill and "magic" needed for safe taking off and landing.
All I need from you is a picture of you or a thumbs up in front of the sculpture. If you travel up the road a bit you'll find another sculpture as well but it is not required. Just another interesting thing to see while at the airport.
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Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.