CAMARILLO AIRPORT

'Camarillo Airport' is a public airport located three miles (5 km) west of the central business district of Camarillo, a city in Ventura County, California, United States. It is roughly equidistant from Los Angeles, CA and Santa Barbara, CA although it is inland. The airport has one runway and exclusively serves privately-operated general aviation and executive aircraft with no scheduled commercial service.
Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Camarillo Airport is assigned 'CMA' by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA^[1] (which assigned 'CMA' to Cunnamulla Airport in Cunnamulla, Queensland, Australia).^[2]

Contents

History

Facilities and aircraft

References

External links

History

Camarillo Airport was originally established in 1942 when the California State Highway Department constructed an auxiliary landing field with a 5,000 ft runway, which was later extended to 8,000 ft in 1951 to accommodate what by then had developed into Oxnard Air Force Base. The airport runway was further extended in 1959 to accommodate jet fighter aircraft such as the Northrop F-89 and McDonnell-Douglas F-101B, used as part of the Los Angeles area Air Defense network. In Mid-1960s the base received 17 new F-106 Delta Darts. On January 1 1970, Oxnard AFB was deactivated and the base became surplus property. Oxnard has 99 Officers and 990 enlisted assigned prior to its closing. The last commanding officer of the 414th Fighter Group was Col. Paul D. Cofer.
In the years following, the County of Ventura actively pursued the acquisition of the former military base property from the Department of Defense for commercial airport use, opposed primarily by local residents concerned about the noise of growing commercial traffic. In 1976 the transfer of the airport was finally approved (provided the runway length was shortened to 5,000ft) and was formally opened by Channel Islands Aviation (www.flycia.com). By 1985, was entirely managed by the Ventura County Department of Airports.^[3]

Facilities and aircraft

Camarillo Airport covers an area of 650 acres (263 ha) and contains one runway (8/26) which measures 6,013 x 150 ft. (1,833 x 46 m). For 12-month period ending June 5, 2006, the airport had 153,360 aircraft operations, an average of 420 per day: 98% general aviation, 2% air taxi and <1% military. There are 600 aircraft based at this airport: 84% single engine, 8% multi engine, 5% ultralights, 3% jet aircraft and 1% helicopters. It is an FAA-towered facility and there are three Fixed Base Operators are headquartered at the airfield.

★ The 'Waypoint Cafe' is a restaurant that is adjacent the runway on the airport property.

★ 'Civil Air Patrol' Camarillo Composite Squadron 61 is based at this airfield, located near Sky Blue Air, at the east end of the airport.

★ 'Channel Islands Aviation' is a FBO located near the end of the Alpha taxiway, and has been a fixture at Camarillo Airport since the beginnings of the facility as a public-use airport.

★ 'Sun Air Jets' recently completed construction (2005) of a full-service corporate jet FBO facility on the north-end of the airport near the end of the Charlie taxiway.

★ 'Western Cardinal' is a Camarillo-based FBO located between the Golf 1 and Golf 2 taxiways, and built as the second major FBO to serve the airport in the 1980’s.
The Ventura County Fire and Police Departments each support large, separate facilities at opposite ends of the field to support new recruit and recurring refreshment training.

References

1. Great Circle Mapper: KCMA - Camarillo, California
2. Great Circle Mapper: CMA/YCMU - Cunnamulla, Queensland, Australia
3. History of Camarillo Airport

External links

★ Camarillo Airport at County of Ventura web site

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