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Process of removing almost 1,200 plants off the property.
The Cessna 421 on the 3,200-foot-long by 200-foot-wide hard-packed caliche runway, next to the airport’s identifier.
Phil surveys the runway, making sure the advertised length is correct.
A look inside one of the airport’s hangars.
that’s there for emergency purposes, and we also wanted to be good neigh- bors and patrons of the environment. One part of our earth-centric basis was moving almost 1,200 plants off this property. Everything needed documenting; there were indigenous lizards, cacti of varying types, and other species. The environmentalists we paid for collected all these rare or under duress species and moved them to another site. We undertook this major effort before ever touching the dirt to create the runway.”
He continued, describing the con- struction of the landing surface. “The materials to put the proper surface together for a runway down there are critical. You don’t want it to be sandy or rocky, and there is a mate- rial called caliche, which is calcium carbonate material out of degraded clamshells. It’s very compatible. We were moving all the topsoil off the runway and thought we would have to bring in a lot of caliche, but we found a vein under the surface. It was fourteen inches under the surface, so we mined the caliche ourselves and surfaced the runway. The avia- tion gods were taking care of us in that regard!”
So far, the pair of aviators note that interest in memberships has been good, although they are currently working to bring the airport to the attention of more pilots. They say
that the leading factor that sets them apart from other international and domestic airports is the care in cre- ating the site.
“We are a legitimate and well-orga- nized group. From the beginning, it was a very well-thought-out project.
Even though we are operating in Mexico, no one can say that we have cut corners or not paid attention to the details. The inspector who came out of Loreto, the comandante (local governing authority for aviation), has been in Baja California for over 35
10 • TWIN & TURBINE / November 2023