SANTA PAULA AIRPORT : Flight of Fancy : One Sunday a month, veteran pilots welcome visitors who come to gawk at and ask questions about restored classic planes.

For those who have wondered where old pilots go, the mystery is solved. They go to the back rows of hangars at Santa Paula Airport, the county’s smallest and most nostalgic landing field. Here they bask in its al fresco Elks Lodge ambience, recall endless flying adventures and critique the day’s landings.

On the first Sunday of each month, they welcome guests into the flying club atmosphere, throw open the hangars to reveal dozens of painstakingly restored classic planes, and answer questions from a stream of visitors.

The practice of welcoming guests began about four years ago because of tax advantages to exhibitors and went on to become a tradition at the 60-year-old airport, said Bruce Dickenson, whose grandfather, Ralph Dickenson, was instrumental in getting the airfield built.

“Restoring aircraft has become very popular,” he said.

On a recent Sunday, Dickenson and his wife, Janice, shared stories about a craft that is more than an old airplane. It’s a 1937 Spartan Executive from the estate of his late father, Don. And it’s one of the few classics there for sale. The gleaming silver antique, restored down to its wool seat covers and white cabin curtains, is priced higher than most homes in the county.

A photo shows that it was a wrecked and wingless hulk when Don Dickenson bought it a quarter of a century ago.

“The guy was drunk and ran it off the end of a duster strip into the Merced River bed,” Dickenson recalled.

It seems the Spartan, a “tail-dragging” airplane, is not easy to land even for sober pilots. And if it crash-lands, the plane tends to catch fire because of a fuel drain valve on the belly.

“There are only six Spartans still flying,” Dickenson said. “Most of (the rest) were destroyed by fire on the runway.”

The plane’s quirks do not deter buyers. The family has received several offers at the folksy hangar where Janice Dickenson said they spend “most of our family time.” On this day, four family members are having snacks at a covered picnic table, surrounded by barbecue equipment and romping dogs. They will wait for just the right home for the Spartan.

A few paces down the row, at a hangar he has maintained for 31 years, is the man who taught Bruce Dickenson to fly.

Perry Shreffler, unofficial historian at the field, wears a baseball cap with his Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel insignia, a TWA mechanic’s coverall from his 34 years with the airline and his Air Force dog tags.

Facts stick to Shreffler like ice to a mail plane’s wings. He can tell you the number of hours in Charles Lindbergh’s famous flight, the duration of the second Atlantic solo flight by Douglas (Wrong-Way) Corrigan, and the whereabouts of the reclusive Corrigan.

He knows the day and hour he enrolled in the Army Air Forces in 1942, and he can identify the model of just about every plane that circles for a landing.

He stands near two of his seven restorations--a twin-engine Piper Apache and a World War II Bucker Jungmann--the basic trainer of the German Luftwaffe. He has donated several rarer, restored planes to flying museums.

The Apache is his working model. Shreffler has flown it into “all 48 contiguous states,” and has embellished the controls.

“I even got a global navigation system. It’s got everything in it that an L1011’s got. I don’t need it, but I’ve got it.”

The former B-17 pilot allows that maintaining a hangar here for 31 years makes him a relative newcomer at the field. For many of those years he was flying out of LAX as a first captain for TWA, traveling to Santa Paula almost daily when he was in town.

Asked why a commercial flier would spend his off time at an airport, he says emphatically: “That’s what a pilot does, because he loves doing it. All the rest of ‘em are just aviators!”

The oldest aircraft on display this particular Sunday is a handsome 1927 American Eagle biplane, built the same year as Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

This plane is also for sale, and its agent, Doug Dullenkopf of Scream Eagle Aircraft Sales, would buy it if he could.

Originally sold for $2,400, the plane is now valued at $150,000.

“It would compare to an old Cadillac touring car,” says Dullenkopf, who has racked up 7,200 flying hours.

He points out the bungee cord shock absorbers wrapped around the plane’s landing gear and plays with the oversize elevators.

“A slow airplane needs a big control surface,” he says.

Two fliers from Van Nuys stop to admire the aircraft.

“We fly up almost every Sunday,” Gilbert Pelaez tells a visitor. “There’s always something interesting here.”

“The aura of this airport is different,” adds his partner, Vladimir Akerman. “It has maintained an aura of the ‘50s.”

Airport regulars estimate that about a quarter of Sunday visitors are fly-ins. The rest include local residents and car and bike club members. Ventura bail bondsman Tony Luna and his wife, Donna, and son, Travis, 3, are among this week’s guests.

“It’s like his very favorite place,” Luna says of his son. “We come here at least once a week.”

“It’s real personable,” Donna Luna says. “You can walk right out to the airstrip.”

The Lunas say they usually have brunch at the nearby Logsdon Restaurant, a sleek new building that stands out at the vintage airport like a debutante at a sock hop.

Toni Wagner, cook-bartender at Logsdon, confirms that first Sundays are a busy time for the restaurant, which has three large dining rooms looking out on the landing strip.

But as a pilots’ hangout, it may be lacking. Several old-timers say they miss the rustic Airport Cafe, which was removed a year and a half ago to make room for the new building.

“You could be in downtown Los Angeles on Wilshire Boulevard,” one says of the new place. “You wouldn’t even know it’s an airport. Everybody’s probably complaining about the noise outside.”

His companions, standing together on the Tarmac in the afternoon breeze, agree, then begin discussing a Beechcraft’s landing pattern.

It’s what old pilots do. Talk about old times, argue the merits of their favorite models. Check out those approaches. And revel in the clamorous roar of engines revving up for takeoff.