Meadowlark Airport

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Meadowlark Airport was a small general aviation airport in Southern California, about a mile east of the Pacific Ocean in Huntington Beach. Meadowlark's IATA airport code was L16. The airport was closed in 1989.

Meadowlark was privately owned since 1947 by Nisei (Japanese American) Yukio "Dick" Nerio, and later by Art Nerio, who could be identified as a lone bicycle-riding figure keeping an eye on things around the 80-acre airfield. The narrow 20' wide landing strip was allowed to languish until the late 1970s, when potholes were filled and the runway repaved. When Meadowlark closed for good in 1989, the area was redeveloped into the Summerlane community, a mixed-use commercial and residential development.

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[edit] History

Meadowlark first opened in the early 1950s, and was originally listed on the San Diego Sectional aeronautical chart as "East Long Beach." At the time, several other small airfields were listed nearby, including Huntington Beach Airport, an 1,800-foot strip approximately 5 miles (8km) northwest of Newport Harbor.

As American general aviation reached its heyday in the 1960s, new aircraft and new pilots found themselves competing for traffic pattern space and takeoff clearances. Flight training and light aircraft operations made Long Beach Municipal Airport, five miles west of Meadowlark, the United States' second busiest airport and many pilots sought out an alternative experience. Meadowlark was rediscovered and over the next two decades achieved iconic status as one of the few remaining grassroots aviation destinations in Southern California. The field was uncontrolled; arriving and departing planes merely made their positions known on a common traffic advisory frequency, CTAF. Avgas and aircraft rentals were less expensive and the airport cafe was legendary for serving old-style big hamburgers and generous baskets of crinkle-cut French fries, making Meadowlark the perfect destination for the proverbial $100 hamburger.

At various times, Meadowlark hosted a number of different businesses, including the Meadowlark Cafe, Harbor Aviation, Sunset Aviation, Bassee Aviation, Sky Ad, Joe Hughes Air Shows and various small shops and agricultural businesses.

By the mid-1970s, urban Huntington Beach was beginning to encroach upon Meadowlark and with it came anti-airport sentiments. Occasional accidents at the airport fueled opposition from the city council, who maintained a feud with aerial banner operator Bob Cannon. There were repeated calls for Meadowlark's closure, but in the end the airfield succumbed not to city pressure, but skyrocketing land values. Acreage in Huntington Beach had become so valuable that Nerio finally informed the owners of Meadowlark-based aircraft and businesses that he planned to develop the airport into commercial buildings, offices and residential units.

[edit] Meadowlark's runway length

The actual length of Meadowlark's primary runway 19/01 has been the subject of some controversy. All three early runways were listed as 2,400 feet in length, but by the mid-1950s the longest runway, then oiled dirt and gravel, was 2050 feet. By 1963, the AOPA Airport Directory listed runway 19 as 1,900 feet long, but the 1963 sectional chart depicted the runway as only being 1,800 feet in length.

Some local pilots claimed runway 19 was never more than 1,700 feet long. As the city of Huntington Beach grew up around Meadowlark, a displaced threshold was added for noise abatement purposes, placing aircraft higher on final approach and yielding as little as 1,500 feet of runway for landing, depending upon the source cited.

Runway length was an issue because, while Meadowlark's single paved strip was adequate for older and smaller lightplanes, the runway was marginal for higher-performance retractable singles and twins.

[edit] Meadowlark today

Occupying the former airport site is the Summerlane community, within which is the Norma Brandell Gibbs Butterfly Park. The park features playground equipment and a picnic area, adjacent to a eucalyptus grove and a butterfly mural attracting Monarch butterfly spotters. Airplane spotters visiting the park will note a plaque commemorating Dick Nerio and Meadowlark Airport.

[edit] Trivia

  • The airport originally consisted of little more than three dirt strips carved out of rural coastal plain farmland owned by Nerio and his family. Used only occasionally and then mostly for flight training, Meadowlark had been owned by the Nerios since 1947, but sources agree the property didn't see any aircraft until 1949, and it was not officially listed on aeronautical charts until about 1954.
  • It is unknown whether any member of the Nerio family ever learned to fly.
  • In later years, many Meadowlark pilots were unaware that the airport had a short, unpaved crosswind runway that ran roughly southwest/northeast. This runway was infrequently used by owners of older, slower tailwheel aircraft, and also by pilots picking up and dropping off aerial banners.
  • On some 1950s sectional charts, Meadowlark was officially called Sunset Beach, after a small ocean strand community bracketing Huntington Harbor, about two miles northwest of the airport.
  • Longtime Meadowlark business owner "Banner" Bob Cannon owned "Sky Ad", an aerial banner-towing service, which he operated from 1976 to 1988 after buying the business from Rod Worthington. Cannon's banner business became the largest in Southern California, employing up to 5 aircraft, including a big red Boeing Stearman biplane.

[edit] External links

(Original Wikipedia article written by VoiceWrite Associatesowner Bruce M. Curtis, 2208229 ATP/CFI, as a public service to fans and former Meadowlark aviators.)

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