Lunch at the Airport

The Mrs. and I went up to Santa Paula to visit her dad today, and for lunch we headed over to the little restaurant at the Santa Paula Airport. That was particularly fun for me because many moons ago I used to fly some of the models of aircraft that were parked in the area right outside the restaurant's windows.

Being the first Sunday of the month, the airport kind of has an "open house" where people can come in and get tours of the place and wander around a bit. We didn't have time to look around, but I could quickly tell that if I lived in this area, this airport would be my second home. It's a fairly small field, and has gotten somewhat smaller, thanks to the river that runs alongside the airport. During our heavy rains of a couple of years ago the river flooded and chopped off part of the runway. I'm glad to say they're back in operation and a wide variety of small general aviation craft were taking off and landing on this blustery day.

With a 2,200' mountain only 1 mile south of the airport, nighttime aviation is not allowed, and even in the daytime, you better be paying attention.

If I didn't have a girl about to enter college, I'd probably dust off my pilot's license and start burning up some 100 octane avgas again. But for now, I'll have to stick to Flight Simulator.