CAA: GA News, "Fullerton's Airport: It's More Like a Way of Life"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Monday, January 14, 2002

Fullerton's Airport: It's More Like a Way of Life
Aviation: Longtime friendships and a communal love of flying define a
long-established, down-home facility.
By KIMI YOSHINO
The Los Angeles (CA) Times


Fullerton Municipal Airport doesn't look like much: an asphalt landing
strip, an air traffic control tower and boxy, nondescript buildings.

But people who frequent the 74-year-old field say it's a place where
dreams are born. More than that, it's where they come true.

Here, lifelong friendships are forged over a daily cup of coffee.
Aspiring airline pilots fly solo for the first time. And corporate
executives can shed their suits and ties to become fighter pilots for a
day, staging mock dogfights. "There's not another place like this in the
world," said Ira Brummel, 75, a retired developer who has been coming to
the airport since the 1950s.

The airport has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a former
pig farm when crop-dusters landed on the site as far back as 1913.
Placentia citrus ranchers William and Robert Downing founded the airport
in 1927, silencing critics who declared the parcel good only "for
raising bullfrogs."

By 1948, it was the fourth-largest airport in the state and nicknamed
the "Fullerton Air Force" by the Federal Aviation Administration because
of the 200 planes based there, compared with 96 at Orange County
Airport, which would become John Wayne Airport. In the 1970s, the
airport, then flanked by businesses and apartment complexes, held as
many as 600 planes, with a months-long waiting list for hangar space.

Once there were at least 27 airfields in Orange County. Today, only
three remain: Fullerton, John Wayne and the Los Alamitos Naval Air
Station. In fact, general-aviation airfields--for private but not
commercial aircraft--have been disappearing across the state. About 30
such airports have closed statewide since 1976, according to the
California Pilots Assn.

And each time there's a crash involving a small plane, critics' voices
rise again to call for more regulation, more security. On Jan. 5,
Whittier pilot Don Dirian died when he mysteriously nose-dived into a
field in Buena Park, half a mile from the Fullerton runway. On the same
day, in Florida, a 15-year-old boy stole a plane and crashed into a
Tampa office tower.

"We're in the cross hairs," said Rod Propst, manager of the city-owned
and -operated airport. "There's no question about it."

The two incidents raised very different issues. The Florida crash,
coming after the terrorist slaughter of Sept. 11, sparked a broad debate
about whether private planes and pilots should get more scrutiny. In
Fullerton, neighbors immediately questioned the safety of having an
airport so close. Some spoke to the news media about petition drives and
flight-path changes and complained about the number of planes. But
Propst said nobody had called him. And so far, there are no plans at
City Hall to change things.

Such criticism rises and ebbs whenever a crash makes news. In Fullerton,
there have been 17 fatal crashes since 1960, killing 34 people,
including one bystander, Propst said.

It all comes at a time when general aviation, though still popular, is
on the decline. Fewer people are flying because of the higher cost of
lessons, insurance and aircraft. Veterans by the thousands, who were
military-trained or paid for lessons through government grants after
World War II and the Korean War, are dying off. And in cities across the
country, developers are hungrily eyeing such prime property, flat and
unfettered.

At Fullerton, many aviation lovers refuse to even consider the idea that
someday even their beloved field might be closed.

"The dream of flying is never going to go away," said Bill Griggs Jr. of
Aviation Facilities Inc., a flight training center at the airport.

A Busy Airport, Once Much Busier

On any given day, there is a steady stream of pilots from Fullerton,
Whittier, La Mirada and other surrounding communities. Wide-eyed
children sit on benches in the observation patio, clutching their
40-cent cans of Mug Root Beer.

The airport may be a little past its prime, but it still averages
roughly 100,000 takeoffs and landings a year. That's more than
one-fourth the number at John Wayne, the county's only commercial
airport. But the number represents half the business Fullerton had when
general aviation in the United States hit its peak in the 1970s.

Fullerton isn't as busy as Van Nuys, considered one of the nation's
busiest general-aviation airports. But it is unique in other ways. The
City Council has a deep, long-standing commitment to the airport's
success. After Sept. 11, for example, city officials voted to forgive 20
days of rent in September because FAA restrictions prevented many small
planes from flying.

The airport relies on no city general fund money for its $1-million
operating budget. It generates its own revenue by leasing to businesses
or renting hangars and tie-downs to pilots, Propst said.

Capital improvements, including the current $2.5-million repaving and
runway-widening project, are funded by the FAA. Propst said the airport
is now the benchmark for security at small airports, with a 24-hour
video surveillance system, gate cards and a satellite police station on
the premises.

All this after acquiring the dubious distinction in 1999 of leading the
country in airplane thefts. Four of 16 planes stolen nationally were
taken from the Fullerton field.

"We were a victim of being naive," Propst said, pointing to what's left
of a 4-foot-high fence that used to surround the 86-acre airport.

Yet despite external events such as terrorism and security, urbanization
and increased air restrictions, Fullerton is a throwback to an earlier
era in aviation. Somehow, the communal atmosphere that developed over
the decades has remained intact.

It's almost like "Cheers," where everybody knows your name. In case they
don't, there's a photo chart of regulars hanging in the tower
entryway--although "half of 'em are dead," said La Palma pilot Ron
Hagerman, 64, who has been drinking coffee for 30 years at Tartuffles,
the airport restaurant Propst likens to a 1950s-style diner.

Locals say the food is good and cheap, and the waitresses are friendly.
The first customers arrive at 7 a.m., when the restaurant opens,
sometimes even a few minutes early. They take their seats at the
"pilots' table." Then a second wave of regulars, who the first group
jokes are older and not as handsome, arrive after 10 a.m.

Some are military veterans. Most are retired. They have one common bond:
They love flying.

They ponder current events and household problems. On a recent day, a
group whose members have known one another for at least 30 years
gathered around a table littered with more than a dozen Rubik's cube
knockoffs.

It seems Ira Brummel has been trying to unload thousands of them for
years--cubes in every shape and size. No one is sure what the real story
is, but Brummel swears he bartered a truckload of them for a fourplex in
Madera, a city north of Fresno.

He gives them away to children who come into the restaurant. Take some
extras, he says, for your brothers and sisters.

More old friends arrive. Hagerman glances at the table. "You still have
puzzles?" he says with an incredulous shake of his head.

Other airport regulars call these men the "airport bums." They have
nicknames such as "Ready Eddie" and "the Richest Man in Fullerton." Fred
Gayton, a retired CBS cameraman, remembers the days when the airplanes
were stacked up seven deep in the approach pattern to land because
traffic was so heavy.

The Breakfast Club Serves Up Lots of Ribs

Jim McGee was there when the FAA tower, the first one in Orange County,
opened in 1959.

"You'll see the same guys in that restaurant and they're solving the
ills of the world right there," chuckled Denise Jennings, marketing
director at Air Combat USA, which lets customers live out dogfight
fantasies.

The regulars pester one another mercilessly and offer up a chorus of
yawns at their stories, which have been repeated for years. One
old-timer used to claim, "You can't buy a minute's worth of respect
around here for a $100 bill."

No matter. Every morning, the seats are filled.

Such loyalty and longevity is a difficult thing to explain unless you've
visited the Fullerton Airport.

Consider Michael Blackstone, an American Airlines pilot who learned to
fly at Fullerton and made his first solo flight at the airport when he
was 16. Now, in between piloting commercial jets, he runs Air Combat
USA. It's gained worldwide recognition, with visitors from as far as
Hong Kong who shell out $900 or $1,500 a pop to engage in simulated
dogfights while zipping and diving in the skies over Fullerton and Long
Beach in real military planes that can rival an F-16 in the G-forces it
generates.

Sure, every once in a while Blackstone considers moving his planes and
operation elsewhere. But, he said, the roots are too deep. The airport
has become "a place to hang out."

Beyond that, it's convenient, a central location, without the traffic
jams and headaches he experiences at other, busier airports that serve
airlines.

"I think of the Fullerton Airport like that song 'Hotel California,' "
Blackstone said. "You can get out, but you never leave."


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