Dirt Fields to Modern Runways : North County Has No Shortage of Airstrips

Ray Ostler recalls the time a commercial airline pilot, flying a small Cessna on a pleasure trip, got word of bad weather ahead in La Paz, Mexico, and decided instead to land at the private Lake Wohlford Resort airstrip just east of Escondido.

The 1,375-foot runway that Ostler manages was so short, however, that once the pilot got his plane down, he was afraid to take off. He waited a week for his son, a bit more daring, to arrive and get behind the controls for takeoff.

It’s not quite clear why the pilot chose the Lake Wohlford airstrip to hole up while the Mexican storm blew over. There were, after all, plenty of other airports in northern San Diego County; he chose one of the shortest runways in the region.

No Lack of Airstrips

North County, given its generally hilly terrain, doesn’t quite offer the freedom-to-land-anywhere afforded the flyboys in the Midwest, where pilots can settle down on a farm road or parched field and store their flying machines in the barn, next to the baler.

Still, North County does not want for airstrips to serve the needs of the 800 or so general-aviation pilots based in North County--about 20% of the total number of airplanes counted by the Federal Aviation Administration in its local region, which includes both San Diego and Imperial counties.

That number is not as large as what county airport officials expected 10 years ago, when it was generally perceived that North County needed more airstrips. The popularity of general aviation a decade ago was thought to be on the rise.

But the expected boom in flying failed to materialize, generally because of the increasing cost of airplanes, fuel, and insurance, and because of the expiration of the GI Bill, which had put many student pilots through flight school.

Those that take to the skies fly everything from Lear business jets to single-seaters built from kits in family garages.

And like the diversity of pilots, so too runs the diversity of the region’s 16--count ‘em, 16 --airports, a term used loosely by pilots even when referring to a small, dirt runway.

Federal Aviation Administration officials in Los Angeles said anyone can build an airstrip as long as pilots can safely take off and land. The greater administrative hurdles are faced at county and city government levels, where an airstrip builder needs major land-use permits and approval.

The largest and busiest of the seven public airports in North County is Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, the only facility in North County with a control tower.

Palomar, which is owned and operated by the county, averages more than 500 takeoffs and landings daily on its 4,700-foot strip. Of the 440 airplanes based there, more are used for business than for pleasure.

Palomar has also reached its capacity for storing airplanes and is now compiling a waiting list, making it the only one of North County’s public airports to do so.

Palomar Airport Manager Rick Severson said the airport is surrounded by private development and has no room to expand, even for a second, overflow runway.

Oceanside Airport, on the other hand, can park 250 airplanes--75 more than are now based there.

One of the smaller airstrips is a private one owned by El Cajon insurance broker Charles Cordell Sr. on his property southeast of Julian. His 1,900-foot runway runs along County Road S-2 in Shelter Valley.

Cordell said he flies for both pleasure and business, and on weekends will fly the 18 minutes from his El Cajon residence to his second home in Shelter Valley--a trek that would take 90 minutes by car.

Cordell has suggested to county and state aviation officials that small, private strips such as his be used as “reliever” airports for pilots practicing their touch-and-go maneuvers.

He said he has extended the use of his airstrip to such agencies as the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol and the Sheriff’s Department, and noted that last February a Marine Corps helicopter set down on his strip in an emergency night landing after a tail rotor differential gear developed problems.

There have been a host of airplane crashes at or near North County’s airstrips in recent years--a double fatality at San Marcos strip in November and the death of two men who crashed into an industrial building next to the Oceanside Airport in 1985 when their plane lost power on takeoff, as well as others.

But FAA officials, as well as local pilots, cannot recall any crashes in which people on the ground were injured or killed.

FAA officials say the riskiest airplanes are those technically certified as “experimental,” including a hundred or so home-made aircraft in North County, built either from scratch or using factory-supplied kits and blueprints.

Such aircraft are approved for flight by the FAA only after they are flown 40 hours or so over remote areas of the county--usually around Ramona or over the San Luis Rey River valley--to prove their airworthiness.

Indeed, the number of home-built aircraft is on the rise nationwide, given that most popular manufacturers of small, general-aviation aircraft have virtually stopped factory production of their smaller airplanes.

The reasons: The skyrocketing costs of product liability insurance and the expense of loading them with the required electronic gear to meet federal aviation standards to fly into major airports.

Cheaper to Build

Pilots with the know-how can build their own airplane for a fraction of the cost of a factory-built aircraft--and boast that their creations perform better and operate more cheaply than factory-built.

Yet there is a great demand for renting aircraft, especially among people who show a continued interest in learning to fly in North County.

Four Winds Aviation in Carlsbad, for instance, currently has more than 50 students enrolled, and Pacific Executive Aviation in Ramona says it is currently teaching more than 75 student pilots.

Most of these would-be pilots will likely rent an aircraft by the hour than buy their own once they are licensed, officials say.

A two-seater, single-engine airplane can be rented for about $30 an hour, including fuel; four-seaters go for about $50 an hour; a six-seater, high-performance aircraft can be rented for about $100 an hour, area companies report.