Chino Airport is a county-owned

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

about three miles southeast of Chino, in

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181, ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States. The

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2007–2011 classified it as a ''

reliever airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporary basis. Reliever a ...

'', due to its proximity to the

Ontario International Airport Ontario International Airport is an international airport two miles east of downtown Ontario, California, Ontario, in San Bernardino County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles and west of downtown San Bernardino. It ...

and the

John Wayne Airport John Wayne Airport is a commercial and general aviation airport that serves Orange County, California, and the Greater Los Angeles area. The airport is located in an unincorporated area of Orange County, and it is owned and operated by the cou ...

(in

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

History

Cal-Aero Academy was an independent flying school at Chino Airport when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

started. The

U.S. Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

contracted with the school to provide basic and primary flight training for Army Air Cadets. The

Abbott and Costello Abbott may refer to: People *Abbott (surname) *Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921), American painter and naturalist * Abbott and Costello, famous American vaudeville act Places Argentina * Abbott, Buenos Aires United States * Abbott, Arkansas ...

film ''

Keep 'Em Flying ''Keep 'Em Flying'' is a 1941 film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The film was their third service comedy based on the peacetime draft of 1940. The comedy team had appeared in two previous service comedies in 1941, before the ...

'' was filmed at the base. During the war, Cal-Aero operated the training base with Stearmans and

BT-13 The Vultee BT-13 Valiant is an American World War II-era basic (a category between primary and advanced) trainer aircraft built by Vultee Aircraft for the United States Army Air Corps, and later US Army Air Forces. A subsequent variant of the B ...

s. The name "Cal-Aero" is preserved at the airport and it can be seen on several buildings. Starting in early 1945, training aircraft surplused by the cessation of pilot training programs, and post-war, hundreds of combat aircraft were flown into Chino for disposal. This agricultural area was employed as a vast parking lot for warplanes. Soon, the entire area was filled with everything from T-6s to

B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...

s. Most planes met an undignified end in portable smelters which were brought there to melt down the warplanes into

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

ingots. During the mid-1960s, the field was used as the location setting for the TV series '' 12 O'Clock High'', as the fictitious Archbury Army Air Field, which was home base to the (equally fictitious) 918th Bomb Group. The airfield itself and a number of World War II-era buildings were used for exterior shots. Chino Airport is the home of two aircraft museums, the

Planes of Fame Planes of Fame Air Museum is an aviation museum in Chino, California, Chino, California,Yanks Air Museum The Yanks Air Museum is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization and museum dedicated to exhibiting, preserving and restoring American aircraft and artifacts in order to show the evolution of American aviation, located at Chino Airport in Chino, Calif ...

, and the airport is one of the centers of aircraft restoration and preservation with several different companies that do this work at the airport.

Accidents and incidents

On 13 June 2013, a

private jet A business jet, private jet, or bizjet is a jet aircraft designed for transporting small groups of people. Business jets may be adapted for other roles, such as the evacuation of casualties or express parcel deliveries, and some are used by pub ...

crashed into an empty office building near a

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

. Maintenance workers were testing the

jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term ...

s when the plane jumped over the chocks and the workers lost control. Since the building was empty, no one was seriously hurt, but the jet was destroyed.

Facilities

Chino Airport covers and has three

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s: * 3/21: 4,919 x 150 ft (1,499 x 46 m) * 8L/26R: 4,858 x 150 ft (1,481 x 46 m) * 8R/26L: 7,000 x 150 ft (2,134 x 46 m)

General aviation

In the year ending March 27, 2009 the airport had 173,193 aircraft operations, average 461 per day: 99%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

and <1% military. 947 aircraft are based at the airport: 77 percent single-engine, 18 percent multi-engine, four percent jet, and one percent

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

. FBOs: * Encore Jet Center * Threshold Aviation Group Airport businesses * M.I. AIR Aviation Education – flight school * Dubois Flight School * Mach One Air Charters – jet charter provider with multiple FAA violations for unsafe operationsFAA Docket 2015-0643 FAA vs Mach One Air Charters, Dan Hill
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References

Notes

Bibliography

* Manning, Thomas A. (2005), ''History of Air Education and Training Command, 1942–2002''. Office of History and Research, Headquarters, AETC, Randolph AFB, Texas * Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), ''Locating Air Force Base Sites, History’s Legacy'', Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC.

External links

San Bernardino County Department of Airports

The History of Cal Aero Field
* {{authority control USAAF Contract Flying School Airfields Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in California Airports in San Bernardino County, California Post-World War II aircraft storage facilities World War II airfields in the United States