Touring West Chester, from shoppers to choppers

West Chester is a city with just enough distance from Philadelphia to establish its own identity and individuality.

As the Chester County seat it has a congenial mix - the home of West Chester University and an area where entrepreneurs, restaurateurs and shop owners have banded together to survive.

That mix, combined with some offbeat attractions, both around the central business district along Gay Street and beyond, makes West Chester a fun destination for a day trip. Here are some suggestions:

Adjacent to West Chester Airport, the American Helicopter Museum & Education Center is a thrill-pilot's dream. Starting Feb. 20, Saturday visitors can take helicopter rides (for $40 plus museum admission) in a Bell JetRanger that zooms, dips and hovers above the town.

The museum has 35 helicopter models in its collection, many on display. Some of the vehicles have cutaways to show their interiors and many allow visitors to sit in and test the controls.

A new exhibit has a "M.A.S.H. helicopter," a Bell 47, that was emblematic of the Korean War era in which the movie and TV show were set. There is also a Philadelphia sightseeing exhibit with "views" from a Robinson R22 copter stationed nearby a mural of Center City.

There are artifacts on display from the big age of helicopter building in the Philadelphia area - from World War II and the succeeding few decades - and films of building and flying the craft.

Tours of QVC, one of the country's seminal TV shopping networks, go on almost continually during the day. There are two versions - the guided walking tour, which costs $7.50 ($5 for children) and goes on five times a day, and the deluxe version, the "all-access tour," which costs $75, starts at 9 a.m., takes three hours, and includes lunch in the QVC commissary.

The former mostly takes fans on a catwalk around the studio for a quick look at the production and product-testing areas. The latter goes into the bowels of the operation, with close looks at the TV backstage areas and even the corporate decision-making rooms. The "all-access" tour excludes anyone under 18.

Check the Web site at www.qvc.com for times of broadcasts when visitors are allowed to watch.

For the last 70 years, a ramshackle stand of one sort or another along the Wilmington Pike (now U.S. Route 202) just north of U.S. Route 1 has been the home of Jimmy John's Pipin' Hot Sandwiches, a respite from modern fast-food palaces.

Jimmy John's is definitely not a palace. It's a rambling place with a big front counter and seats set down almost willy-nilly among displays of toy trains and seemingly random condiment bars.

The specialty of the place is the special frankfurter, "loaded with chili, cheese & bacon." Coupled with a drink and a small order of fries for the "Triple Crown Meal," it will set a day-tripper back only $5. A lone skinless dog for the fat-avoider will cost just $1.50, and a cheesesteak, a traditional Taylor Pork Roll or a pork barbecue sandwich are $3.60. Topping it all off with a 20-ounce milkshake at a mere $2.25 will make you feel oh-so-'60s.

When Bam Margera - the loudmouth of the flicks Jackass and Bam's Unholy Union - is home in West Chester, he is likely to be in the club he helped start, the Note.

Open since the fall of 2008, the bar-with-food has shows - mostly local acts, but some semi-national - from five to seven nights a week.

"We've done everything from country to industrial," said owner and partner Donald Moore. "We're booked through Live Nation and we have been fortunate with the shows we have been getting." Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block performed earlier this month, and there are occasional WXPN-sponsored concerts.

The Note is almost like two rooms. A former vacuum-repair shop, it has "an industrial feel to it," according to Moore, with brick walls, concrete floors and exposed ceiling beams. There are a balcony bar and a downstairs bar and the stage area is set off from the downstairs bar by a wrought-iron fence and gate.

"The stage is up, so you can see from anywhere. We just love the space," Moore said.

Bobbi-Jo Powell and her mom, Rosemary Brandt, came to the corner of Church and Gay Streets four years ago with their original idea of being an art and antiques shop.

"Then we realized what West Chester people really wanted was an upscale gift shop, so we went in a different direction," said Powell, 32, of Rose and Bobbi's Unique Boutique. Powell, who worked in a variety of retail managing jobs at King of Prussia mall before targeting West Chester for the first shop of her own, became enamored of vintage-look toys, particularly the Schylling line. "They are tin or wooden, no plastic, and a look back to the toys of the past."

Rose and Bobbi's also sells vintage-looking T-shirts, home decor items, cooking supplies, and men's and women's fragrances. "We get courthouse workers, college students and grandmothers looking for that present for the kids that they would have liked," Powell said.

It is the toys you can't find at the discount stores that make Powell feel good about being in West Chester.

"We have [spinning] tops and old-fashioned jack-in-the-boxes and just the kinds of things my grandmother would bring me that I would delight in," she said. "If you want plastic or routine box games, that's fine, but we think lots of people want to come to a downtown like this and find something different, and we are pleased to give it to them."