Original subtitles

Asking someone why they love to fly

is almost like asking someone

why they like Picasso.

The beauty is the tact that you can't really describe it.

It's something you have to behold.

Flying takes you into another dimension-literally.

As ground-based people, we walk this way, we drive that way.

But in the airplane, we go this way.

And we add an entire dimension.

We see, feel, and experience things

that people who don't fly will never know.

And yet, here, at Van Nuys Airport and other airports like it,

the price of admission is an interest in aviation.

If you like airplanes, and you like to fly,

you're welcome here nothing else counts.

My mother would take me out to the airport

and park in a viewing area and watch airplanes.

And as a little kid,

just stand with my hands up against that fence,

and looking out, watching the planes,

and nagging my mother to let me go up in an airplane.

My mom used to say that when I was a little baby,

my dad would be holding me and I'd see an airplane and say,

"Airplane!"

It was kinda like, you know... We're going to do this now.

I think I started thinking about flying

when I was a young child.

I used to dream about it all the time.

When I grew up, I had a lot of dreams,

like, dreams of flying that I could just fly.

As a little kid, I just always knew that was something I wanted to do,

whether I became a bird somehow

and that was just the closest thing to being a bird.

I know I compared with Desiree a little bit.

I had a barn out in the back.

And I used to jump off the barn with my brother,

the same thing she used to do, thinking, "Oh, yeah!"

You can fly a little bit off the barn."

Soaring with my hands out, building the little crates

with the wings on them, trying to imagine myself flying.

Thought, wouldn't it be nice

to be up there, all alone in an airplane...

Doing what I want to do,

see what I want to see?

And that's what prompted me.

There're some feelings about flying that dety description.

Only the best poets in the world can probably do that properly

Robert Louis Stevenson's verse of poems for children said...

How I love to go up in a swing, Up in the air so high.

It is the loveliest thing that ever a child could do.

Up in the air and over the sky, so I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and valleys, all over the countryside.

Oh, my parents sent me to my grandparents back East.

And during this flight I looked out at the wings.

I knew they kept the airplane in the air, but they weren't doing anything.

They weren't moving.

And, I couldn't understand how that happened.

All this iron around me was being suspended.

And, when I got to my little hometown

in New Jersey,

I went to the library and I began reading

about aerodynamics and aeronautics.

And it seemed so intriguing

that I couldn't wait until I got back home.

And I'd go to the local airport, and my first airplane ride

was literally hitchhiking this way instead of that way.

Many people think the local airport,

the local airport... Which may be some distance away,

is the one in which there's airline service

or commuter service.

And yet, in this country, there are less than 600 airports

with any air-carrier service.

There are 17,000 landing facilities for General Aviation airplanes,

helicopters and seaplanes.

I wish I'd been around when they invented these

two most misunderstood words: General Aviation.

What in the world does that mean?

From the jets that you see flying in and out of here,

to the people that fly for the tire department

and the police department, to the little airplanes...

That's all considered General Aviation.

The General Aviation airport it's where you can park an airplane.

You can learn to fly, without having to be concerned

too much about the scheduled aircraft

or the commercial aircraft.

The small general aviation airplane,

those powered by piston engines and twirling propellers,

is the fundamental basis for all of aviation.

It's the bedrock. It's the foundation.

Without it, the entire infrastructure of aviation collapses.

We have to have little airplanes to get to the big airplanes.

Everybody driving a big airplane started in a little airplane.

SpiritJet One-Twenty-Four, keep it climbin' to four-thousand

and contact Departure now, g'day.

Up to four-thousand, we'll see ya, Spirit-One-Twenty-Four.

But the problem that the United States faces with airports today,

is that too many of them are closing,

and once an airport's closed, that's the end.

You can never reopen it.

Because the land is recycled into some other use.

Airports are not being replaced, and as we lose them,

we're losing centers of commerce, centers of recreation.

All kinds of things happen at airports that we suddenly lose.

I know that airports are never popular in a community,

particularly in a residential area.

They're almost like NASA in that regard.

Nobody had any respect for NASA until they got a PR man

to tell people what they were doing.

You've got to explain to them what you're all about,

why the airplanes make noise.

How much money is the airport generating?

What's good about the airport?

And then, when they find out

what's really good about the airport,

they'll partner with you.

Van Nuys Airport' Information Mike...

Two-three-flve-zero Zulu weather.

Wind, two-five-zero at nine. Visibility one-zero.

Well, Van Nuys is unique because it's the world's

busiest General Aviation airport.

Controls more traffic, has more activity

than any other General Aviation airport

anywhere in world.

As a matter of fact, it's busier than London Heathrow.

It's busier than any airport Europe can throw at us,

or the Orient, for that matter.

It is true, that we do have one take off and landing

about every forty-five seconds during the day.

And we probably have the world's greatest controllers.

At this airport, you can be working 30 airplanes,

and it's a huge mix.

Everything from Piper Cubs to MD-80s,

and you're working them at the same time.

It's a little town.

And we have everything that a little town should have-

police department, the engineering department.

We're the largest employer in the Valley.

We hire more people and pay more people on this airport,

than any other industry in the Valley.

When I think about Van Nuys airport,

I think about the historic significance

of that airport.

It's famous-One Six Right.

When you see those numbers, and you hear the controller say,

"You're clear to land, One Six Right,"

you know you're home.

You're at the greatest airport.

What's incredible about this airport is what's behind the closed doors.

You know, what you see when you open the doors.

The Van Nuys Airport is very special

because of the diversity of the airplanes here.

World War ll airplanes, warbirds,

privately owned, you know P-51s and biplanes, Pitts.

Just all kinds of different airplanes

flying on the weekend.

Most of my job is talking to pilots all the time.

And I get to know all the pilots, by name and numbers.

They recognize my voice when they come into the area.

And instead of saying "Van Nuys Tower,"

they'll call Phil's name.

They hear him on the radio. I love to hear Phil's voice.

I can't remember when Phil wasn't in the tower.

The most relaxed guy there can be.

Coming in from Europe

when you've been up 14, 16 hours,

there's nothing like hearing Phil say,

"Welcome back to Van Nuys."

How's everything gain'?

Gain' alright, Phil, how're you doin'?

I got the, uh, late shift, tonight.

Once you get some years on, and then you can get a day shift.

It's my own personal history that makes the airport special

for me in the sense that it's my home airport.

It's where I learned to fl y, it's where I had my first airplane.

Now, I'm addicted.

I can't imagine not having an airplane.

Gulfstream Five-Quebec-Sierra, Runway One Six Right...

clear for takeoff. Wind two-four-zero at eight.

Clear for takeoff, One Six Right, Five-Quebec-Siena.

This airport has more corporate jet airplanes on it

than any airport in the world.

And, the people that come to Los Angeles to make the deals,

they come to Van Nuys Airport.

This airport is so perfectly set here,

in the middle of the San Fernando Valley.

I mean, we've got Hollywood. We've got Los Angeles.

We've got... The business districts here are tremendous.

Van Nuys is an international airport.

Typically we'll leave here and go nonstop to Nice, France,

Paris, Amsterdam.

We can get customs, here, and immigration here.

And when we come in from Europe it's nonstop right to our destination.

Five-Tango-Sierra, begin your tum,

and contact departure, one-twenty-eight, seventy-five.

See ya later, Phil, thanks.

One of the most important things we have here at Van Nuys,

are the students, the people learning to fly.

And this airport has provided an arena for people to learn to fly

for seventy-five years.

You have information Whiskey.

I was like a little kid when I was learning how to fly.

I mean, I would actually go out

and sit as close as I could get to One Six Right

and watch planes come in... for hours.

Van Nuys Tower Premier Four-Eight-Eight Papa-Charlie...

During the initial time that I started training,

someone suggested that I take a hand-held radio

and go sit at the redline.

And, I found a place, parked my car, got out

and used my radio and listened,

and I kind of put myself

in the place of each of the radio calls

so that I could begin to understand what they're talking about.

To learn the language. One Six Right, clear to land...

It took on a tremendously special meaning

and to this day, I'm admitting that I need my redline fix.

Now, that means I just go out and I'll sit there for a halt-an-hour

and I'll watch operations.

I'll be right at the edge of the runway or the taxiway,

as far as they'll let a civilian go.

And just being there is being a part of the airport.

If someone is going up for their first solo,

they usually tell us-

because then we can give them a little extra room.

We give them a wind check,

and I just take care of them a little bit better...

Not push them.

Because I did my first solo at Van Nuys Airport, as well.

You help square them away, keep them safe,

and then you kind of cut them loose.

Like, "Alright," you've seen them solo.

And they're always, "That was my first solo."

And we're always telling them, "Good job! Keep it up."

Or maybe give them some numbers, "Alright, that was a 'six'.

Try it again."

All of the sudden,

the guy that taught you isn't there anymore.

You don't know when it's going to happen.

They just got outta the airplane and stood there on the ground

and looked at you and said, "Okay, fly."

And he sort of monitors you, but he's sure that you can do it.

He's sure that you're ready.

And, when I took off, I thought, "My God!

There's nobody in front, there. I'm all alone!"

And, he said, "I'm here." He had his walkie-talkie,

"I'll be listening to you.

You just do what you've been taught to do."

But something comes over you,

and it's the realization that it's up to you.

Everything that you're about to do... is you.

So you remember everything you've been taught.

You take oft and sure enough, it's the greatest feeling in the world.

Because when you land, you've just done

what so very few people have done.

And, not for that reason, but, because you were able to do it.

And, it's an incredible feeling of, "Look Ma - No Hands!"

Then after the license, of course, comes the plane.

I was in a position then, where I could afford an airplane.

And I bought a brand new Bonanza in about 1975.

I had my own airplane, my own Bonanza.

And, the day that I got it, or a couple of days after that,

my wife and two kids and I were going out to a movie.

And I said, "No, we gotta go by the airport first."

And we went to where this airplane was,

and I forced them all to get in the plane, to sit down,

and I kind of showed them what it was like to fly it.

I was so excited to have this airplane.

So, my family sat there like,

"You know, Dad, we gotta get to the movie."

But, you know, we had to go see the plane, first.

I hung on the fence for about four or five years

trying to figure out how you buy an airplane.

It is as it was in 1944 when it come out of the factory.

You won't find one in the country that is equipped the way this one is.

Well, the DC-3, I painted it up in 1952 United colors,

which is what I flew.

We fixed it up really nice.

My family had a history with A-26s.

My grandfather bought some A-26s after World War ll.

He owned A-26s and my father owned A-26s.

But then, my dream always was to have something

like what I have now, which is this Citation X,

which is the fastest non-military jet in the world.

I save an hour with this plane, coast-to-coast, both directions.

There was a period where the Pitts was down for six months

for some repair work being done to it.

I found myself still coming up to the airport,

when I didn't have an airplane, just to see my friends

and to hang outwith my friends and talk about airplanes.

I'm up here on days where it's raining,

and I'm just working on some things in the hangar with my airplane,

because I enjoy coming here on the weekends, or my Fridays.

It's a place where you just like to hang out,

because of the size of it, the number of people there,

and the different mix of airplanes.

They're all there, in that spot. And it's been there a long time.

There's nothing like it on the planet.

It's not just about an airport, it's about a community.

It's about a community of flyers

and people that are dedicated to the special art of flying.

I would just go there,

not knowing what the hell I was going to do.

Just to walk around, see who I could meet-hang out.

Paul Meyer, he used to come in a lot to the office

and do a lot of hangar flying.

Tell lies about all these different flights that I never took and...

Hangar flying, the way I see it,

is a bunch of pilots talking about their experiences

and I used to like to ask them if they logged it.

I wrote in my logbook, "This is a love story."

"Please... call," and my phone number,

"if you find it."

It was a cherished log. Every little airplane, I flew.

And in those days, things weren't as strict.

Somebody would come along and say,

"Could you fly this airplane? Have you flown it?"

"Of course, I can. Yes, I have," right?

But, it went into my logbook.

I log every flight every time I go up

in every airplane.

It's my record of what I've done

and I'm very proud of it.

Well, it's part of your life.

It tells what you did, and when you did it.

My best memories of the Van Nuys Airport

were in my early days... Were in the Fifties and Sixties.

It was the best time of my life.

I came here in 1959, January.

The same year that the FAA became into existence.

And have been here most of my career.

In 1938, when I first went to the Van Nuys Airport,

and I just fell in love with airplanes.

Probably my first real memory of the airport would be 1934.

Aviation was just starting to be popular

after the first World War.

You know, there were a lot of barnstormers around

and little small dirt strips.

And I think maybe the thing that really got to me...

It got to millions of people...

Was Lindbergh, 1927.

And, of course, he became a god, an idol.

And, we all wanted-everybody wanted to learn to fly then.

I was probably six years old,

my mother took me down to Los Angeles.

And I sat on a curb and watched Charles Lindbergh go by.

And... he's always been my hero.

I was ten years old when he made his flight to Paris.

I immediately sent for a kit of the Spirit of St. Louis.

It flew very badly

It was unstable about all three axes.

And I had the pleasure of meeting Lindbergh years later.

I mentioned this model I'd built of the Spirit of St. Louis,

and how badly it flew.

And, he laughed, he said,

"Must've been a good model. The airplane flew that way, too."

Most people focus on aircraft.

But airports are somewhat the unsung hero.

Aircraft always need a place to rest or nest,

and without the airports being there and understanding

how they function, how they grow over time,

the whole aviation industry wouldn't really exist.

One Six Right, clear to land Wind variable at six...

One Six Right, clear to land Wind variable at six...

advise on initial contact you nave information Bravo.

Roger that.

Two and a half months ago, this port was just a bean field.

But, we're not only building a permanent location for an airport,

but an airport city with industries, with homes for employees

with stores for their wants, with a hotel...

Los Angeles Metropolitan Airport

is being built where the visibility is unlimited

by a group of men with unlimited vision.

It's designed for present

and future permanency of the aircraft industry,

with two smooth, all-weather runways

and emergency landing fields on all sides.

If you are identified with the aircraft industry

you are interested in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Airport.

Well, the idea for a Metropolitan airport, originally

typical southern California thing called a real estate development.

Three fellows... Heffron, McCray and St. John,

got together and decided to promote and develop an airport

in San Fernando Valley.

The San Fernando Valley, then was dry, barren crops,

but very, very few people.

It was originally conceived

to be the best airport in the Los Angeles area.

And, in its inception, its location,

the way they laid out its runways, the size and width of its runways

were the best in the West,

and possibly the best in the whole United States.

What they did, is they invested in this planned community.

They brought in aircraft manufacturers

such as Bach Aircraft Company,

which was a major investor in the airport.

Just about every realm of aviation was to be addressed here,

and they were all supposed to live together

and contribute to each other and the advancement of aviation.

That's what really was the vision of the founders of Metropolitan Airport.

It opened on October first of 1928.

But because of the twenty-fifth anniversary

of the Wright Brothers first flight, 17 December, 1928,

they decided to make the formal dedication that day.

Waldo was the General Manager.

And he was as well-known a pioneer pilot

as there was in the United States.

He put that good face upon the airport.

Waldo was a thinker and a challenger.

And he was a guy,

that the status quo could always be improved.

Of course, he was in an era

when the airplane was being improved.

Every day there were better and better airplanes

and more challenges.

Well, Waldo was part of that process

and this is where aviation really began

on a modem basis in Southern California.

My first ride in an airplane was at Metropolitan Airport.

And I, thereafter, became quite interested in flying.

We used to get our bikes and ride out to Van Nuys

and Burbank, Glendale... And watch the airplanes.

It was about twenty miles, that's a pretty long ride.

But we were young kids and we didn't care what we seen

as long as we seen some airplanes.

And well, that was about 1928.

To promote the airport they had a number of events,

to highlight its availability

to its great flying and weather conditions.

Early in 1929,

the United States Army Air Corps had an endurance flight here,

the Question Mark flew between

Metropolitan Airport and San Diego.

Back and forth,

over a period of a week day and night.

Basically they had a hose and five-gallon cans of gas

that went into the hose

and down to the plane.

The procedure we use today is really no different.

Except the hose hooks up to a hookup on the plane.

But basically that's the only difference.

It took some very, very careful flying, though.

'Course during that particular flight,

there was a young woman aviator that decided

she was going to get up and establish a record.

Her name was Bobbi Trout.

And when Spatz found

that she was flying around in his airspace,

he told Waldo, "Get her outta there!"

You know, and the only way they could communicate

was by notes that were attached to the hoses.

And Waldo replied, "What do you want me to do?

Shoot her down?"

Of course, Waldo knew most of the women pilots.

He helped run their Powder Puff derbies

and was a factor

in virtually everything they tried to do.

Amelia Earhart came to set a new speed record.

Metropolitan had a three-kilometer course

spread out from East to West.

And, she was able to clock a speed of a 181 MPH

to set a new speed record on a closed-course.

That was followed and broken about a month later

by Pancho Barnes who capped Amelia's speed record.

All of that activity was very exciting

for the folks in the greater Los Angeles area,

and attracted a large crowd, got a lot of press.

Everybody was very excited about flying in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, all that sort of came to a swift end

Unfortunately, all that sort of came to a swift end

with the crash of the stock market in 1929.

The airfield really went into disrepair.

Most of the major investors lost their investment in the airport.

The only use of the airport

was for illegal contraband, during the Depression.

The airport was utilized as a moonshine landing facility

for illegal alcohol that was manufactured in México.

The reason they selected it here,

because there was absolutely no activity

My family first acquired the airport grounds in 1933

in payment of a bad debt to my great-grandmother.

And, as a kid, I would be around the airport

primarily because this was my dad's vocation.

He acted as General Manager from about 1933 to about 1941.

Dean Daily, Senior, had basically taken the airport

Dean Daily, Senior, had basically taken the airport

and was trying to find a new market or a new avenue

to introduce money into the operation of the airport.

He did that by allowing the motion picture industry

to come in and actually shoot a number of movies.

Perhaps tomorrow we'll be on the plane.

Hollywood sustained the airport

and really allowed the airport to revitalize itself and prosper

with a whole new generation

of folks who were interested in learning how to fly

at Metropolitan Airport.

The first time I flew here, was with gas models.

We used to go out on the runway, and just fly at our hearts content.

Was no problem at all.

We'd see a plane taxiing out or one in the pattern

and we'd just wait until they were finished,

and, then we'd continue flying. It was great.

My first memories of the airport

were of seeing an awful lot of fellows out here learning to fly.

My father and I coming out from Hollywood,

and he said, "You oughta be thinkin' about what you're going to be"

when you grow up."

And, I said, "You know what I'd like to be

is an airline pilot."

He said, "I know a guy with an airplane",

Let's go over to the airport."

So, we went over there and I had my first lesson that day.

I had to sit on that parachute and two cushions

to see out of the back cockpit.

And after flying for ten hours, I finally soloed.

What we'd do occasionally is go out to a small field

about midway between here and Reseda... just a farmer's pasture.

And we'd land and load up

with rubber boots and shoes and anything we could drop

and have bombing practice. And, also, toilet paper.

We'd get up there, and let a toilet paper roll stream

and see how many times you could cut it with your wings.

It was all sorts of tun. And you know, at that time,

there was nothing between here and Reseda.

And nobody seemed to care. It was fun.

Well, we used to take off, here,

about ten minutes to five, because about ten after five,

the Lark train would go up these tracks right here,

and then we'd see the train coming and so we'd come along

and get down low right on top of the train.

When we got over the engineer, you know, it would scare him.

You know: here's this big noise right up over his head.

And, you know, we'd peel off and that was fun!

So, I can remember another time we did this

and he was waiting for us.

So, when we got right over his engine,

he pulled the whistle and scared the hell out of us!

The day I soloed was a year after

the day I'd hoped to have soloed.

I came out here and went around the patch one time.

And the instrucfor got out, and gave me a few words of instruction.

And he started to walk away from the plane,

he says, "Hey, wait a minute."

"Somebody's pulled a red flag up on the pole.

Somethin's wrong."

They came out like this, you know...

I figured, "What the hell they're wavin' at?!"

So, I made another round or two, they come out...

So about the third time I thought, "I better stop.

It looks like emergency."

Dean Daily runs out,

With the red flag, and flags all the airplanes down

and says, "Put 'em in the hangar"

and leave 'em there until you hear further from us."

Went in the office, and here's about a half-a-dozen guys,

hovering around a little radio.

And right then, Roosevelt is addressing Congress

on this day of infamy

So, all of the aircraft in Pacific coast were grounded-no flying.

And the next morning, I went out to the airport

and there was no use opening the hangar,

because you couldn't get any airplane out.

And if you did, you couldn't use it.

The field had closed while I was in the pattern.

So obviously I didn't get a chance to solo.

That happened a year later in the Navy Cadet program.

After December 7, 1941,

the United States Government acquired

what was then Metropolitan Airport.

That resulted in a name change of the facility

to the Van Nuys Army Air Base.

The United States Army Air Force

invested in the creation of two large concrete runways.

It really changed the landscape and the permanency

of the Van Nuys Airport as we know it today.

Around the periphery of the airport, we had aircraft manufacturers

that were supporting the war effort with the production

of Navy trainers as well as Army gliders.

There was a lot of activities directly supporting the war effort.

I'm very fortunate,

by being a member of the Eighty-Third Squadron,

and did this flying, here.

We were over in August and September of '43.

When we first arrived the first day,

I had our squadron commander walk in with a lieutenant.

The squadron commander says,

"A-Flight, I want you to meet your commander.

"He just bailed out of a P-38 over Los Angeles.

"He got a engine afire

"so he trimmed it up for out to the sea

and he bailed out."

That was my introduction to Van Nuys, however.

Our nation needed women.

We needed women to help,

because the men were all sent overseas.

There weren't any men left

to ferry airplanes from the factory to the military schools.

The war was still on.

It was 1945, and I was based in Portland, Oregon.

And, I took a P-38 and flew down to Van Nuys one afternoon.

And I was on our initial approach to make my break,

and all of the sudden, here comes a Navy fighter.

And, that guy was all over me.

Really, all I wanted to do was get on the ground

and go to the latrine.

But, this guy really gave me a time.

And we went at it for maybe five, ten minutes up there.

And finally he left me alone and I went in and landed.

Some of the other fellows were there to meet me.

And they said, "Gosh, Jim!"

They were really going after you up there."

And, I said, "Yeah! Who on the Earth was doin' it?"

And he said, "Well, that gal just left here.

She was ferryin' that airplane for the Navy."

And, so, I don't think that was true.

And if it was true, she was a heck of a pilot!

Radioplane Company in Van Nuys, California,

was located in an environment

favorable for the procurement or qualified personnel.

In 1942, the Radioplane Company moved into Metropolitan Airport.

And they produced radio-controlled airplanes.

Basically toy airplanes.

The Army and the Navy ended up purchasing

these little radio-controlled planes for use in target practice.

One interesting aspect of that was

Army Air Force photographer, David Conover,

was sent on assignment to shoot women war workers.

His commanding officer was Ronald Reagan.

And David Conover went onto the line

and he photographed a woman worker.

And she was actually very attractive.

This was really a defining moment,

as it transitioned her into a modeling career,

and ultimately, a career as a Hollywood film star

who would be known as Marilyn Monroe.

When the war ended in 1945,

the federal government no longer had an interest

in the Van Nuys Army Airfield.

And so the airfield really lacked any sort of sponsorship.

It sort of meandered and was intermittently closed

because it was essentially running of money to operate.

The War Assets Administration, sold the airport

to the city of Los Angeles for one dollar.

The facility actually changed names as part of the purchase

and became Known as We San Fernando Valley Airport

with the only constraint being that Air National Guard operations

had to continue through about 1985.

The Guard primarily served a reserve function

for the regular Army Air Force.

And they operated P-61 Mustangs at this time.

Civilian operations were coming back to the airport.

General Aviation was prospering.

They had this wonderful facility that had this huge investment

by the Army Air Force to take advantage of.

That was really the glory days of the airport.

Flying was just for the fun of getting off the ground.

So, it was pretty cool. A lot of fun.

When I arrived at Van Nuys in 1952, it was busy.

There was a lot of student training going on.

The instruction that you got,

back after World War ll, was marvelous.

Because these guys are bumming around these airports,

just trying to make a buck on the weekend.

They had a job, but they wanted to fly.

And they're probably working for a couple dollars an hour

But they had a chance to fly airplanes.

I got my license with Roger Clarke

in the jungle off of Stagg Street in 1951.

Got a job as a lineboy

at a little place called Valley Pilots

across the field.

And after I started-had a license, I started flying with Fred Murphy

And he had Cessna 120s and Ercoupes.

And it was pretty cheap back then.

You could rent for about $3.50 an hour.

In the era that I learned how to fly and did my solo,

the Van Nuys National Guard had P-51 Mustangs to start with.

And then they eventually graduated up into the F-86 Jet.

And that was the first jet airplanes anybody had ever seen.

So, I'd be peering through the chainlink fence,

like everybody else, watching these military jets take off.

The meeting place for that community

was the Skytrails Restaurant.

It was like the, the gathering place

of literally some of the most famous people in aviation.

Of course all of the professional pilots

flying for the companys would be over there

telling war stories, sitting around the table.

Good old Mr. Tarver would run everybody a tab.

He became a lot of us in the Guards bankers.

If we needed money, cash checks, do anything, we could sign the tab.

I understand by the time he did pass away,

he had some ridiculous $30,000 in bad checks, and what have you.

The story was,

that one of our friends paid part of his bill.

And Mr. Tarver couldn't survive it. It killed him.

I was still Lockheed at that time. And, I just decided I'd like to build,

what they were called in those days was Goodyear Racers.

The Cosmic Winds are very historical Formula One raceplanes.

There were several of them.

The aircraft were actually assembled right here at Van Nuys.

They were a great little airplane, and they participated at Reno.

And, for that matter, at the Cleveland Air Races

for many years.

When Mr. Smith bought the airplanes from Tony Levier and Associates,

he come over to me and he asked me

if I'd like to fly one of his airplanes for him.

And I says, "Yeah",

"But I'll have to think about it a little bit.

And I'll go home and talk to my wife."

And I didn't even get through the gate.

I turned around, went back, and says, "It's a deal."

I was pretty lucky. I flew one of the Cosmic Winds.

Jack Conroy was a fellow guardsman

and he was about ten years older than me.

He was a World War ll pilot, got shot down in a B-17

and spent some time in a prison camp.

Conroy was the first guy

to ever fly from Los Angeles to New York and back.

And he did it on Armed Forces Day, 1955.

The flight of the Boomerang was unique

in that it demonstrated

that coast-to-coast jet flight was feasible.

Jack Conroy demonstrated that

by flying his F-86 from Van Nuys to New York,

and then returning back to Van Nuys,

all within daylight hours.

The flight was historic in that it was the first time

that anyone had ever accomplished this teat.

And it became the predecessor

of coast-to-coast airline travel as we know it today.

Back in that era, the only requirement

to fly in and out of Van Nuys airport was you had to have a receiver.

And they didn't work very well.

We'd go to the tower, the guys were very good about it.

They'd come out, and they'd yell down at us.

And we'd yell back up at them.

And we'd figure out some way to communicate

in a one-way direction.

They only had one frequency

So there was a lot of frequency congestion as well.

And, so, it would get very busy. And usually a controller

would stay on position for no more than an hour

because of the heavy volume of traffic.

The tower would say, "The aircraft downwind..."

Or maybe he'd call you by your type airplane,

"If you hear the tower, acknowledge by rocking your wings."

And the tower would finally say "Okay, we, we gotchya,"

Because I would do that all the way around the pattern.

In 1957,

the San Fernando Valley Airport received its final name change.

It became known as the Van Nuys Airport.

Also in that year, the Air National Guard

had a need for a larger and faster aircraft,

which necessitated a longer runway.

The Air National Guard increased the runway at Van Nuys.

And in doing so they created the Sherman Way Tunnel.

I remember the construction going on there.

And I remember that tunnel being built,

and then when they extended that runway.

I guess it's the only tunnel in the whole valley.

It was such a novelty. It was all lit-up inside.

And its shiny, gleaming tiles in there, and all the lights.

And you drove down underground,

and came up the other side.

And I mean there was nothing else like it.

That was a big deal back then.

It made Van Nuys unique.

And it had a runway that was essentially twice as large

as the majority of the commercial airports

across the country.

It was a whole lot longer than it needed to be

for the kind of airplanes I was flying.

Because it had increased in length

from six thousand feet to eight thousand feet.

It's got darn near the longest runway

in Southern California.

Sturdy, it was made hard and made right.

And that made it unique.

And its uniqueness collected pilots by the hundreds.

The Guard picked up the C-97s, which we flew and flew and flew.

They really were the mothership.

Weekends and holidays,

whenever the Guard would have some event,

they would organize great marching bands on the ramp

up there at the Guard base.

The background was C-97s, and great airplanes.

The Air Guard had a motto.

They said, "It's people helping people."

The community, other Air Force units,

whatever was necessary, those people would do it.

On the civilian side was a lot of mercy stuff.

The big quake in Alaska, we hauled

I don't know how much goods in there for those people.

And there've been a lot of other missions around the world.

And we had a logo in the front that said the sun never set

on any of our aircraft, because they went everywhere.

In the early 1960s,

NASA had a requirement for a heavy transport

to move around the Moon Rocket, or segments of the Moon Rocket.

Jack Conroy developed the Pregnant Guppy

for this very reason.

Basically a C-97.

And they took the whole top-end of it off,

and put a new superstructure on there,

that made it look more like the Goodyear Blimp

than an airplane.

It was all predicated on the fact,

that it they're going to build the missiles on the West Coast,

and fire them off in Florida,

you had to get them there some way.

Most of the bridges in the United States

are built to fourteen-feet seven-inch es clearance.

So you couldn't put it on a truck and drive it from here to Florida.

Jack Conroy was one of these thinkers

who said, "We can fly 'em there."

Some pretty smart people, some engineers and things

were predicting bad things.

And it was probably one of the biggest days

around this airport... To watch that first test-flight.

And, they took the airplane around the pattern

and landed it for a press conference.

And Jack Conroy, who was always up,

first words he says to the press-corps,

"Well, this is nothin', yet.

"Wait'll you see us build a really big one," he says.

Which they ultimately did.

Wernher von Braun gave Jack a letter in 1969

that said he felt that the Guppy was the single most important thing

for putting a man on the moon that decade.

Back in 1965, I exposed literally hundreds of people

to their first ride in a corporate jet.

That was very fun days.

I can remember back in the 60s when I first came here,

if you came out on Saturday and saw a Learjet-wow!

That was something, you know? If you saw a Gulfstream I... wow!

That was something... That was an old turboprop airplane.

In fact this Learjet...

I keep pointing to this little Learjet behind us, here.

That little Learjet has a lot of history.

It was the first corporate jet to land at Van Nuys Airport.

I brought it here in November, 1964.

Jack Conroy and I set a record to New York and back

in June of '65.

People that flew out of this airport in the Learjet,

that I'm familiar with, were people like Frank Sinatra,

and Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, and...

I have a guest log

that practically everybody in Hollywood

flew in that airplane in 1965.

In 1970, the Air National Guard transitioned to the C-130.

The C-130 was a much more modem aircraft

that would allow them to have a much larger reach

at supporting our troops overseas or within the United States.

Once we transferred over,

we had people making nonstop flights

from Japan to the United States,

when before that was a three day trip.

So, things moved rather fast.

And our people moved right along with it.

In the early to mid-70s,

when I first became aware of Van Nuys

and moved to Southern California,

this was the heyday of aviation throughout the country.

Small planes being built almost as frequently

as some of the models of cars that you could buy.

And, it was populated by many many flight schools

and a host of the normal kind of General Aviation airplane...

A single-engine, fixed-gear, four-place airplanes.

And the propeller airplane and the piston engine

were just a part of Van Nuys

as they were for most General Aviation airports

in that era.

Lear Five-Five-Four Six-Alpha, Roger...

This airport grew, though, steadily every year,

bigger and bigger and better.

And, today, it's really an amazing place to visit.

It's like a dream come true

for the people that originally put it together.

It's actually answering everything that they said it would do.

But, we're not only building a permanent location for an airport,

but an airport city with industries, with homes for employees

with stores for their wants, with a hotel...

sky three-zero thousand scattered...

Temperature two-four, dewpoint zero-five.

Altimeter two-niner-niner-six...

'LS Run way One Six Right approach in use,

Landing Runways One Six Right and One Six Left.

Advise on initial contact you have Information Juliet.

The one problem that aviation enthusiasts have

is they talk to themselves about how wonderful aviation is-

how wonderful airports are,

how valuable they are to the community.

The problem is, they don't talk to the neighbors.

And the neighbors don't comprehend and understand

what a wonderful resource a local airport is.

How much it contributes to the economy.

Thousands, millions of dollars.

Hundreds and thousands of people being employed as a result.

The airport is a center

for not only interstate commerce as it used to be,

but global commerce.

Flights are taking off from Van Nuys

going to all four corners of the world.

And we benefit by that.

Almost every airport I've flown into,

you can see petitions of nearby residents

wanting to ban certain aircraft or close the airport down.

If you want further information to defend the airport,

you can till out the petition

with your name and e-mail and things like that.

So, several airports are experiencing this problem.

People that live in airport community areas,

they all have the same problems all the way across the country.

What they are concerned about,

they are watching Van Nuys Airport for.

Because we have it all.

And as they watch us develop, they learn.

And as they learn, hopefully, we can keep these airports

from closing all the way across the country.

Our members tell us

what the most important issue in General Aviation is.

And that's the concern

for preserving our infrastructure of GA airports.

We lose about one private airport every single week in this country.

Reasons for losing these airports... The land values.

As the urban sprawl begins to happen,

as it has so dramatically in the Los Angeles basin,

the land that these airports are on begins to be worth more

used for homes, used for shopping centers, et cetera.

Grand Central in Glendale, all that's left today is the terminal,

and a street says "Airway Drive" or something like that.

The terminal is still there.

It's still, you know, it's being used

as a warehouse or something today.

But, you can go back and look and see all the airports

that have closed, that used to be here.

Fifty-percent of the airports are gone now.

It was kind of fun to go to these different places.

I'll bet there was fifteen airports in San Fernando Valley

when I was a little kid.

Now, there's only two or three left.

In my lifetime,

I've seen three local airports just disappear.

And they're never going to come back.

And Van Nuys is one of those airports

that someday, it the politicians get their way with it,

it'll be a shopping mall or a housing project,

or an industrial park.

People by and large,

do not realize that it is not a renewable resource.

You can't lose it and then bring it back again.

For more than twenty-five years,

mayors have wanted to close Chicago's Meigs Field,

for various reasons.

The latest one, Mayor Daley,

for wanting to put in a park named after his wife.

In the spirit of cooperation, our organization said,

"Let's rename the airport after your wife,

and leave it an airport and put in a parklike setting there, too."

Because it was such a valuable airport

for people who wanted to do commerce

in the loop area of Chicago.

In the middle of the night on March 30th, 2003,

bulldozers were sent in by the mayor

in a dramatic thing that we'd never seen before.

Instead of painting "X" s on a runway to indicate that a runway is closed...

That's the official marker...

The bulldozers actually dug trenches

two-feet deep in the cement so the airport could not be used again.

The airport that had struggled

to be the little airport that could for almost twenty-five years,

now was closed forever.

Most of us were kind of shocked

that somebody could just go in there,

dig up the field and nobody did anything about it.

And now the airport's gone.

It's scary, because what it says is,

somebody can go anywhere and do that, and that's that.

And there was no warning, no nothing.

Guys go out the next morning

to go flying and the runway's plowed.

The airport's gone, it's done, it's over.

So, when people do things like they did at Meigs Field,

everybody goes, "How did they get away with it?

"How come nobody did anything about it?

Isn't there anybody there protecting it?"

It shouldn't've happened. It just shouldn't've happened.

And that airport was sacrificed for the wrong reasons.

It's another reason, though,

why I think that we need to be constantly vigilant

of taking care of Van Nuys.

We've lost many, many of our airports,

particularly in California,

which has a richness of pilots and airports.

It's the number one state for both.

We lose a private airport, we lose access.

We lose a private airport, we lose access.

And it would be like closing the off-ramps

on an interstate highway.

Here was a network of runways throughout the country

that began to dwindle in number.

It's a shame.

Because we've been losing airports through the years

to the real estate developments.

And it seems like

there're no new ones being built.

And every time we lose an older one,

it hacks away at our airport system.

Van Nuys Airport Information November now current.

Wind two-three-zero at niner. Altimeter two-niner-seven-niner.

When people built houses around Van Nuys Airport

and the majority of traffic were propeller driven airplanes,

it was a totally different noise factor than there is now,

with a jet taking oft from the airport.

When the runway ended at the tunnel,

the National Guard was flying, the F-86 Sabre Jet.

And they would take off in flights of three or tour.

Talk about noise... They were noisy!

And yet most people didn't complain about it.

Later the real estate people came in and sold property

South of the airport and North of the airport.

And then eventually, which happens in a lot of cases,

the airport became an obstacle.

In other words, the homeowners were complaining about the noise.

They're loud.

You know, they go and they try to get up

and they cut across.

And you have to stop your phone conversation

or listening to someone

it they're right at your patio in the back or something.

So you shut your mouth for a few minutes

and wait'll they go by

We do have the community around the airport that...

That's what I meant.

But it didn't used to be that way, used to be...

Now there goes one now.

Sounds like an airplane. And it should!

Noise is a huge issue around so many airports.

And especially in California

where the towns are just growing and growing.

And the traffic around the airport

and at the airport is just increased.

So, on both sides, the population is growing,

so are the airports.

Sure, the Valley was very nice before all the influx of people.

And they came here because of Aerospace

and all the jobs available here.

And there's no way you're going to stop a city from growing.

Several of us do get noise complaints

over certain areas.

Many times, though, they don't know

the circumstances for that flight.

We do mercy flights, Toys-for-Tots.

We have the flying physicians that fly outta here.

Angels Flight, where we're moving

cancer patients from one city to another for treatment.

Flying children in the Young Eagles program,

where these kids are learning about aviation...

And having an opportunity to really see what goes on

from the front seat of an airplane.

And thinking about careers in aviation.

This airport, as do many others,

bring a lot of revenue to the surrounding city.

And a lot of the aircraft do a lot of good.

There's a lot of people that are alive, today,

and their houses are intact

because of what we've done with the helicopters

and the airborne aspects of firefighting and public safety

Fires don't seem to have any logic.

They don't break out during eight-to-five hours.

And pretty much at night,

we have a good possibility of locating the fire early on...

Getting initial attacks started,

so we keep a one-acre fire

from becoming a fifty-thousand acre fire,

and causing death and destruction and loss of homes.

When I had my little house, I was one of the complainers.

Because they had a traffic pattern

with helicopters right over my house.

And I was working two jobs at nights and stuff like that.

So I complained and they fixed it.

You know, and everybody's always tried to do that...

Make it work.

We change our approach and departure routes for the helicopters

so we don't continually fly over the same neighborhood.

And we try to fly as high as possible

within the realm of safety, to not be a nuisance

to the surrounding residents of Van Nuys.

And the industry itself is correcting it.

Engines are being built quieter.

Airplanes are being built

to conform with environmental controls better.

The things that a lot of people've complained about,

the coming of the jet airplane to Van Nuys Airport,

are going to disappear with modern technology

and new manufacturing.

Van Nuys Airport' Information Motor.

Van Nuys Airport' Information Motor.

Zero-two-zero-zero Zulu weather..

Aviation has evolved in a short hundred years

from small kites and a twelve-second flight

to around-the-world flight to spacecraft.

No, we're not going to stop the future of aviation.

But at the same time,

if they're taking away all these airports,

how is this other reality and technology going to happen?

It's important for us

to safeguard the General Aviation airports,

like Van Nuys Airport, like Meigs Field.

Above all else, the future of aviation

requires airports like this.

We can't handle all the types

of activity that we want in our aviation future

at airports like Los Angel es International.

It just can't happen.

Cub, Four-Seven-Eight, Runway One Six Right,

from Ten Golf, cleared for takeoff.

The United States is defined by its industrialization,

and the crown jewel of the industrial age is aviation.

It's a complex adventure that you take

into not only engineering aircraft,

providing facilities for aircrafts in the form of airports,

and being able to take part in the adventure of flying.

Those airports really serve as a monument

to us achieving this realm of industrialization.

There's a lot of history in us being able to achieve this.

But, it would be nice if we were able to preserve airports

and their history and their significance

and impacts that it's made to our day-to-day society

If somebody had told me,

the day I went to work for United Airlines,

"Before you retire, you will be flying

"an airplane that'll hold almost 300 people.

"You'll go 600 miles-an-hour through the sky.

You'll be six miles up, and you won't have any propellers,"

I'd say, "Put that guy in a straight jacket!"

But that's exactly what happened.

I think it's a vital part of our community.

I really do.

I see kids go to that viewing area,

and they just sit there and they watch airplanes.

And that, to them, is a dream. And it all starts

in a gasoline-driven aircraft.

You gotta start somewhere.

And to somehow think that that isn't going to continue

would be a very, very sad day.

Because so many dreams begin and end with the promise of flight.

When I was growing up, I had already soloed

before my parents even knew I was flying.

They wouldn't even let me drive the car.

So I'd ride a bicycle out there. But it was accessible.

I could get right up on the airport

and ride that bicycle right up to the hangar.

There were a whole bunch of us, and we all wanted to fly.

And we did.

I kind of wish

they could subtract about forty of my years,

and I'd be out there just having a ball.

I'll guarantee you that.

I've done a little buzzing around here,

but, they can't prove it anymore.

But yes, you learn to fly, and you fly the way you feel.

There's nothing like single-engine, single-seat flying.

When you got the power,

you can get in and around those white things up there.

And, man, it is just out of this world.

They call 'em clouds.