Chiriaco Summit Airport is a county-owned public-use

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 ...

located one nautical mile (1.85 km) northeast of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

of Chiriaco Summit, in Riverside County,

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 United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The airport is maintained as a functioning airport for emergency purposes and recreational VFR use by the Riverside County government. Some west coast aero clubs use the airport (and nearby restaurant) as a "destination" site for annual weekend competitions.

History

The airport was opened in April 1943 as Shavers Summit Army Airfield and was used by the

United States 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 ...

Fourth Air Force The Fourth Air Force (4 AF) is a numbered air force of the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). It is headquartered at March Air Reserve Base, California. 4 AF directs the activities and supervises the training of more than 30,000 Air Force Reser ...

as a training base during

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 ...

. At the end of the war the airfield was determined to be no longer needed by the military and turned over to the local government for civil use.Thole, Lou (1999). ''Forgotten Fields of America : World War II Bases and Training, Then and Now''. Vol. 2. Publisher: Pictorial Histories Pub.

Facilities and aircraft

Chiriaco Summit Airport covers an area of at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of 1,713 feet (522 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one

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 ...

designated 6/24 with an

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 ...

surface measuring 4,600 by 50 feet (1,402 x 15 m). For the 12-month period ending November 30, 2006, the airport had 6,000

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 ...

aircraft operations, an average of 16 per day.

References

External links

George S. Patton Memorial Museum and Chiriaco Summit, CA Airport
{{authority control Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in California World War II airfields in the United States Military facilities in the Mojave Desert Airports in Riverside County, California

History

Facilities and aircraft

See also

References

External links