The area I live in Washington state was originally settled by people arriving by boat. Even the original native inhabitants got around almost exclusively using canoes. With generally calm sea conditions and a plethora of coves, bays and islands, waterborne travel at the time was not just convenient but often the only feasible option. The problem now is that what was handy back in the days of water travel is not convenient with today’s mostly road-based system. To compensate, there is a state-run ferry system plus four huge bridges. However, using this system is anything but fast or efficient. A typical ferry trip usually takes an hour, including loading and disembarking, and there is often a long wait time to board. The bridges funnel traffic to choke points which causes traffic to back up. This is all very time-consuming and awkward.
But, as it happens, there is a surplus of underutilized general aviation airports. Nearly every major town in the Puget Sound area has its own rather large airport, with the size and runway lengths completely out of proportion to the actual needs of the locals. This unusual situation is because following Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World War II the U.S. Army decided an invasion from the sea by Japan might be imminent, so they went about building fighter bases up and down the entire Pacific Coast. As the crow flies, they were all spaced about 50 miles apart, which was the combat operational distance for fighters of the day. These airports all occupy huge squares of land and almost always have the standard triangular runway layout required in the day of tailwheel fighters flown by inexperienced young pilots needing to land into the wind.
In the Puget Sound area alone, there are seven of these airports within less than 40 miles of each other: Bellingham (KBLI), Burlington (KBVS), Arlington (KAWO), Port Angeles (KCLM), Bremerton (KPWT), Shelton (KSHN) and Olympia (KOLM). All seven were built with three 5,000-plus foot runways, arranged in a triangular fashion, with the most active facing into the prevailing wind and constructed in a relatively short time at the beginning of the war. The question sometimes is asked, how did the builders know what the prevailing winds were way back then? Being the practical American workers they were, the bull dozer drivers just looked at the direction of fallen trees in the woods – no extensive studies needed.
After the war, these airports were no longer considered important to national security, so the Federal government simply gave them to the local community to be used for (what was hoped to be) a vibrant future local air transport system. But, it did not quite turn out that way. For years local governments actually did not know what to do with their huge concrete covered airports and let them languish, with grass and trees growing up between cracks in the pavement, plus coyotes and deer running amok. Even today, many of them are still vastly underutilized…except by savvy general aviation pilots.
And that history lesson brings me to a flying story.
My wife and I recently decided we wanted to buy a certain type of foreign car, and we began searching online for vehicles available in the area. As it turns out, there are dealers for these cars scattered all over Puget Sound, but depending on where they are in relation to the water, getting to any one of them could easily take an entire day by car despite the fact they are only 40 miles or so away from each other as the crow flies. So, wanting to look at some of the vehicles available, I decided to call the dealers and ask if they could just meet me with the car I was interested in at their local (ex WWII) airport. “Not a problem,” they all said. In fact, I think the sales guys liked the idea of temporarily getting away from the office.
The first dealer was located in Bremerton, which is on the other side of Puget Sound from where I live. Getting there would have involved at least a two-hour drive in traffic, plus a ferry trip, then another drive. Just going there and back would take all day. But, flying from my local airport (KBVS) in our Cessna 340 to Bremerton (KPWT) only took 18 minutes. We landed there with the sales guy and the car waiting in the FBO parking lot. The vehicle had a few more scratches than were apparent in the dealer’s photos, so we looked up another dealer, this time located in Shelton – about a one to two-hour somewhat circuitous drive around the various inlets of south Puget Sound from Bremerton. In asking that dealer the same question, “Could you meet me at the Shelton airport in about 20 minutes?” the immediate answer was, “Sure we can.” So, 15 minutes later, we are on the ramp in Shelton when the car salesman shows up with the advertised vehicle. This one, however, had a lot more miles than we wanted, so we decided to keep looking. But, this airport had a nice hamburger and milkshake serving restaurant that seems to cater mostly to skydivers, so all was not lost. We had lunch and pondered our next move.
The next dealer with the type of car we wanted to see was located in Olympia, another one to two-hour drive from where we were but only a 12-minute flight. We called the dealer and he said he would be glad to have one of his people meet us there with the car. Fifteen minutes later, we are on the FBO’s ramp when the car pulls into the parking lot. Unfortunately, this one smelled like the previous owner had regularly smoked in it so that one also got turned down.
The sales guy then informed us of another similar car at their Chehalis site (about 40 miles down the freeway), and they could send a driver down there and bring it back. By now we are having too much fun flying the airplane to different unexpected places on a nice sunny day, so we tell the dealer if they could have that car on the Chehalis Airport (KCLS) in 15 minutes we would see it there. Now Chehalis is a bit inland from the Pacific Coast of Washington. The U.S. Army apparently was not concerned about that particular area being invaded by the Japanese, so their airport did not come for free from the U.S. Government after the war. It is the more typical compact single runway affair located fairly close to the freeway. We arrived to find the car and smiling salesman waiting and more than impressed that his potential buyer showed up in a shiny new-looking twin-engine airplane. We drove the car around the airport perimeter road and found some problems we didn’t like, so we again passed on the purchase.
Then, with our cellphones overheating, we found yet another car at a dealership. This time in La Grande, Oregon – several hundred miles away from the dreaded WWII coastal invasion threat, but only about an hour flight away in the 340. This airborne car searching activity turned out to be even more entertaining and productive than we thought, so we decided to look at that one too. La Grande is a pretty small town located on the interstate just to the northwest of Boise, Idaho, but they have a decent airport (KLGD) with a 6,000-foot runway. The dealer there told us he is located just four minutes from the airport and would be glad to meet us there in an hour. After a pleasant flight over the top of 14,500-foot Mount Rainier, we met him near the gas pumps at the airport and looked the car over. But, at that point, I think we were experiencing sensory overload from looking at too many cars. If someone brought out a brand new one plated in gold, we likely would have turned it down. Besides, the convenience of looking for cars via airplane in different areas of the state was just too much fun. We passed on the car then flew home.
An hour later, we were home for dinner and looking on the internet for additional cars that might deserve inspection via airplane. Maybe the right car will eventually show up, but if not, we will surely have more fun looking.