SPECIAL REPORT * Critics say it will never fly, but the Victor Valley hopes to beat the odds and turn George Air Force Base into a major airfield as a . . . : Desert Town Seeks to Land an Airport

Is Southern California ready for a major commercial airport out in the Mojave Desert, more than 80 miles from Los Angeles?

Promoters say it is. They’re betting tens of millions of dollars on it.

Several regional planners say it isn’t. They say that--in today’s market, at least--it’s a lousy bet.

The debate has intensified in recent weeks as other plans for alleviating the Southland’s increasingly urgent need for more commercial airfield capacity have bogged down in controversy. The folks in the desert think this is a good time to make their move.

The idea was born almost a decade ago when the modest San Bernardino County community of Adelanto, anticipating a future airfield crunch, came up with what seemed like a grand idea.

Why not convert adjacent George Air Force Base, which the military had decided to abandon, into a big league civilian airport?

The town of 14,500, which nudges up against the west side of the old base in the Victor Valley, predicted that the airfield would become a transportation super-hub, able to serve an estimated 50 million passengers each year, provide for a large volume of cargo and freight operations and even accommodate future hypersonic and suborbital aircraft.

Adelanto’s city fathers, who dubbed their field of dreams High Desert International Airport, pinned a lot of their hopes on a proposed 300-mph, magnetically levitated rail system between Orange County and Las Vegas. The high-speed trains, they said, would pass right by their airport, providing the perfect intermodal link.

The space-age rail line was never built. Neither was High Desert International.

What seemed like the fatal blow was struck in 1994, when the Southern California Assn. of Governments rated some of the Southland’s military fields--George and Norton Air Force bases in San Bernardino County, March Air Force Base in Riverside County, the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro in Orange County and the Naval Air Weapons Station at Point Mugu in Ventura County--on their potential for conversion into major commercial airfields.

George finished dead last.

But today, bickering ensnarls proposals to convert El Toro, SCAG’s No. 1 conversion candidate. Nothing much is happening yet at Norton, now a civilian field called San Bernardino International Airport that handles mostly student pilots on training flights. March and Point Mugu still handle only military aircraft.

A coalition of local governments and agencies is battling plans to enlarge Los Angeles International Airport, fearing increased congestion and noise in Los Angeles and the loss of money needed to develop airports in outlying areas. Similar concerns are holding up proposals to modernize Burbank Airport.

The Los Angeles Department of Airports’ vast tract of land near Palmdale--purchased years ago for what some envisioned as a major alternative airport--still lies fallow. Most of the investors who bought up adjacent land, hoping to make millions, haven’t made a dime. No one’s talking much these days of trying to build anything there.

And all the while, as Southern California continues to grow, the shortage of commercial airfield capacity becomes more acute. SCAG estimates that air cargo operations in the area, which total less than 3 million tons a year, could rise to 8.9 million tons a year by 2020 if there are airfields that can handle that much.

Several business analysts say that unless something is done--and soon--the Southern California economy will begin to suffer.

Emboldened by such concerns, some desert politicians are at it again.

This time, it’s the City Council of Victorville, a town of 69,000 on the southeast side of the old Air Force field that has agreed to purchase the George property and already has annexed it to the city.

This time, they have decided to call it Southern California International Airport. The name was chosen to promote the notion that the field can conveniently serve the entire Southland--despite being located on the other side of the mountains and about 85 miles from Los Angeles, 75 miles from Orange County and 125 miles from San Diego.

This time, they envision an airfield devoted solely to cargo. The promotional materials talk about “a commitment to pro-business policies and financial incentives that will ensure a healthy environment for business at the airport and ensure Southern California International Airport’s financial stability for the next 40 years.”

They argue that unlike the past, when most air cargo traveled in the bellies of passenger planes, between 56% and 64% of it is now carried in all-cargo planes. A lack of passenger service won’t be a handicap, they say.

They announced a few weeks ago that they have enlisted the services of Sterling International, a successful Laguna Hills-based real estate development company that says it plans to pull together $418 million in investment capital to create a business and industrial airport complex providing jobs for 15,000 people in the Victor Valley. Sterling has agreed to pay $28 million for the property.

They claim that the existing airfield, with its two heavy-duty runways, control tower, refueling facilities, maintenance buildings and ample spaces for parking and cargo storage, is the ideal place to start developing major commercial cargo operations.

They assert that the addition of a 15,000-foot runway--and extension of one of the existing runways to the same length--could give the airport a cargo capacity of 3.9 million tons a year by 2020. That’s more than even an expanded LAX would have by then.

The developers say the field’s close proximity to Interstate 15 and the tracks of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Union Pacific railroads, “provides easy access to Los Angeles markets,” while being just far enough away to escape smog, congestion and “exorbitant” real estate prices.

Ignoring the blistering summer heat, the parched sands and the punishing winds of the Mojave Desert, the promoters contend that the area provides “ideal living conditions.”

They say the goals for their ambitious project are realistic.

“It will work,” said Dougall Agan, the man overseeing the project for Sterling.

But several regional transportation planners are still skeptical.

SCAG said in 1994 that although the federal decision to give up the military airfields “represents a great windfall and opportunity to solve projected commercial airport shortfall problems,” George was the worst of the available choices in Southern California.

“Since most domestic air cargo is very time-sensitive, it is not expected that air cargo would be trucked long distances to the Victor Valley,” the report said. “It is more likely that air cargo generated in the Victor Valley would be trucked down to Norton [now San Bernardino International Airport] or Ontario Airport.”

SCAG said that for the next decade or so, the best Victorville could hope for is some limited feeder service. The report said that while a commercial airport there does have some long-term potential, it could be 2015, or 2025, before the market around Victorville “could reach the critical mass necessary to support inter-regional air cargo service with the required economies of scale.”

Steve Erie, a University of California expert on the state’s infrastructures, said that SCAG’s 1994 concerns about the remoteness of Victorville and the time needed to build a market there are still valid.

“Wags call it Southern California Intergalactic Airport,” he said.

“What the developers are trying to do is get a head start with investors, so they can dry up the funds available for the competition--Norton, March and the others,” Erie said. “I don’t think they’ll get what they need.

“The only way development of George would work now is if all the competitive sites go belly up, and I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” he said.

Another Southland transportation planner, who asked not to be named, agreed with Erie, calling Sterling’s project “a longshot.”

Steve Albright, executive director of the joint powers authority pushing the commercial development of March, called Sterling’s plans “admirable.”

“But that projection of 3.9 million tons of cargo by 2020 is unrealistic,” he said. “Their numbers and time frames are overly optimistic. I think it’s wishful thinking.”

Erie may have summed up many planners’ views best. “If I was taking my money to Vegas,” he said, “I wouldn’t bet it on George.”

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Field Test

Developers are promoting the conversion of the former George Air Force Base--now called Southern California International Airport--into a commercial airport devoted soley to cargo. Some regional planners say it’s too far away and that it would be years before it could become viable.