Lompoc Airport is a public

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 surfa ...

located just north of the city of

Lompoc Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called ...

Santa Barbara County Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria. Santa Barba ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

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 territori ...

Facilities and aircraft

Lompoc 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 § Ver ...

of 88 feet (27 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. 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, concre ...

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 ...

surface: 7/25 is 4,600 by 100 feet (1,402 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending December 11, 2020, the airport had 30,000

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 82 general aviation per day. 41 single-engine and 1 multi-engine aircraft were based at the airport during that time. Skydiving operations are held daily during daylight hours at Skydive Santa Barbara.

World War 2

Near the Lompoc Airport the US Navy built the Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Lompoc base for US Navy lighter than air airships during World War II. The bases construction started in December 1942 and opened with 500 x 1000 foot asphalt landing mat, two

blimp A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hy ...

mooring masts, and housing for 25 officers and 72 enlisted men. The blimps patrolled the coast for enemy ships. On August 13, 1943, five days after opening, while ground crews manoeuvred ship K-29 in fog in the morning on Circle #2, the blimp's tail pendants hit a high-voltage power line and 11,000 volts arcs through the ship. Four men holding the metal handling bars on the control car were electrocuted and a fifth crew member was seriously burned. The power company was supposed to have moved this power line hazard but had not. These were the only fatalities at the base. Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Lompoc
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References

External links

Lompoc, California Airports in Santa Barbara County, California {{California-airport-stub