Kermit Week's projects future status

[marine air]

Quite a bit of the farmland has been developed since I first visited in the 1980’s. There’s airline service nearby and countless apartments going up. One day the neighbors will complain about the noise and “ dangerous” airplanes being flown out of there and they’ll have to move. Hopefully that will be fifty or more years in the future.

[bdk]

Quite a bit of the farmland has been developed since I first visited in the 1980’s. There’s airline service nearby and countless apartments going up. One day the neighbors will complain about the noise and “ dangerous” airplanes being flown out of there and they’ll have to move. Hopefully that will be fifty or more years in the future.

They have been complaining ever since they built a development of new houses a few years back immediately south of the airport boundary. Apparently the residents didn't notice the airport across the street when they bought their houses. The building occurring along the extended runway centerlines consist of industrial buildings at least.

The county is doing hangar "safety inspections" again. Of course the real purpose is to collect registration numbers so they can send out more tax bills. The county sent a friend of mine a notice that he was being kicked out of his hangar because his airplane was not present for the "safety inspection" (it was at the radio shop getting a transponder test), though he had the required fire extinguishers in place. As far as the county is concerned though, you get more tax money from houses than you get from a general aviation airport. To them, Chino Airport is a waste of space because it is a low density revenue generation source.

<Soapbox Off>

[wendovertom]

Quite a bit of the farmland has been developed since I first visited in the 1980’s. There’s airline service nearby and countless apartments going up. One day the neighbors will complain about the noise and “ dangerous” airplanes being flown out of there and they’ll have to move. Hopefully that will be fifty or more years in the future.

They have been complaining ever since they built a development of new houses a few years back immediately south of the airport boundary. Apparently the residents didn't notice the airport across the street when they bought their houses. The building occurring along the extended runway centerlines consist of industrial buildings at least.

The county is doing hangar "safety inspections" again. Of course the real purpose is to collect registration numbers so they can send out more tax bills. The county sent a friend of mine a notice that he was being kicked out of his hangar because his airplane was not present for the "safety inspection" (it was at the radio shop getting a transponder test), though he had the required fire extinguishers in place. As far as the county is concerned though, you get more tax money from houses than you get from a general aviation airport. To them, Chino Airport is a waste of space because it is a low density revenue generation source.

<Soapbox Off>

Not to be a pain in the pain place, the lack of compliance with staying current on taxes is a real issue in Utah - it is amazing how many Private jets are fully operational and yet are not current with their taxes. Small airport operators (here anyway) suffer due to the lack compliance. As one jet war bird owner told me a long time ago, purchase price is just the ticket for admission. . . .

Tom P.

[OD/NG]

Quite a bit of the farmland has been developed since I first visited in the 1980’s. There’s airline service nearby and countless apartments going up. One day the neighbors will complain about the noise and “ dangerous” airplanes being flown out of there and they’ll have to move. Hopefully that will be fifty or more years in the future.

As referred to earlier, that time is actually now! The fifty years you refer to is actually much, much sooner. It is so much sooner, in fact, that this is the primary reason that Planes of Fame Air Museum is moving to Northern California. From the people I've talked to over there, they estimate that within the next 10 years Chino airport either won't exist or will be so restrictive as to prohibit most warbirds from operating out of there. It will follow the same path that Santa Monica airport took. Make no mistake, the ONLY reason that PoF is moving is because of nearby encroachment. The landscape is VASTLY changed off the eastern edge of the 26's with that whole area looking like the industrial warehouse areas off the eastern edge of nearby Ontario airport. As all of the farmers retire, or die, their farmlands are increasingly being bought by industrial and commercial real estate planners looking to build commercial areas. It will only get worse with time, imo.

Let's look at the last 3 primary warbird operators at CNO:

1) Plane of Fame - already publicly declared their intention to move their operation to Lincoln, California.

2) Yanks Air Museum - already publicly declared their intention to move their operation to Greenfield, California.

3) Aero Trader - unless the business is sold (unlikely), it is unlikely to move anywhere. Most people I talk to think that whenever Carl and Tony "retire", Aero Trader will fade away at Chino and cease to exist.

This is all that is left of the major warbird groups at Chino.

It's sad to see, but the "warbird mecca" we all know and love will likely cease to exist at Chino airport within our lifetimes.

[JohnTerrell]

I thought Planes of Fame stated publicly, when the Lincoln proposal came up in 2017, that they had absolutely no intention of leaving Chino? According to their public statements, it sounded as though the proposal for the Lincoln site was to establish another satellite spot, like that of the Valle, AZ location.

[OD/NG]

I thought Planes of Fame stated publicly, when the Lincoln proposal came up in 2017, that they had absolutely no intention of leaving Chino? According to their public statements, it sounded as though the proposal for the Lincoln site was to establish another satellite spot, like that of the Valle, AZ location.

This is true, Lincoln will be a satellite facility. From my conversations of talking to the PoF pilots, they ideally would like to never leave Chino, but the writing is on the wall for the eventual closure of Chino airport. It's not a matter of if, but when. They are "headging their bets", to give them the opportunity to have a "back up" plan for whenever Chino airport either shuts down, or puts so many noise restrictions in place that jets and/or noisy warbirds won't be able to operate from there.

Nothing will change at Chino airport unless or until the city starts placing restrictions on the flying operations over there. So far that hasn't come to pass, but eventually it will, so PoF has to have a "Plan B". It would be foolish of them to not plan for this possibility, and the Lincoln annex is the answer to this.

The SMO airport and it's shutdown is the example of how everything in the future will take place at Chino, in my opinion.

[JohnTerrell]

This popped up in my Youtube feed today, and it is a great look back to the early heyday of Fantasy of Flight, in the late 90's/early 2000's, and includes some fantastic footage from the final days of restoration and test flying the P-51C "Ina the Macon Belle" and the meeting of Lee Archer (which I had never seen in full, only parts), footage from the Flying Tigers reunion that Kermit Weeks held and which he had each guy take turns flying the TP-40N from the back seat, and footage of a lot of Fantasy of Flight aircraft flying that haven't been flown for quite a while now.

Last edited by JohnTerrell on Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Left Seat]

The feed lots are a "feature" of Chino and everyone says something about it, most of them in good fun... (Kermit) chuckling every time he makes a joke about the cows...

Chino does seem to be particularly aromatic... Fingers always crossed to be upwind.

20 years ago, I paid a visit to POF on one of those wintry, rain drenched days.

I can testify from first hand experience about fording foot high, bovine influenced effluent on the way out to see the N9M and ME262.
It is rather "agricultural" in pungency.

Fortunately, my friends at Hertz didn't notice the odor and returned my cleaning deposit on the rental car when I returned it to Ontario.

[Silverplate]

My "problem" with Kermit and Fantasy of Flight has always been the simple fact of what's the point of making 10 new planes airworthy (which he seems to be doing now) if they aren't going to be flying much anyway? I am not well researched in Kermit by any means, but it seems that Kermit flies his planes... and ONLY Kermit flies his planes. What's the last show that any of his planes have been to besides the WWI's at Oshkosh? Being in CA, I could be wrong and maybe he does bring his planes to some shows, but I would personally rather see some of his "airworthy" planes sold to people that don't have 20 of them to fly. Lewis' collection is getting that same vibe from me lately too, what's the use of all the airworthy planes if they aren't ever out of the hangar/going to airshows? Not saying I would rather them NOT be airworthy, but maybe focus on getting some pilots accustomed to your planes so they can actually go places? I realize it may be uncomfortable to have someone else fly your planes, but there are a ton of capable vintage aircraft pilots out there that would love to do it!

Kermit is definitely the "main" pilot for most of his collection. Other than letting a few of his staff fly the "light" stuff, i.e.- General Aviation type classics, L-birds, Storch, etc., I don't believe anyone else flies his aircraft. I don't have a problem with that, as virtually every aircraft in the collection is personally owned by him and not FoF or the 501(c)(3) entity he created that owns a few more. In his defense, Kermit does fly his aircraft to local shows in Florida. He attends Sun n' Fun every year as well as a few others locally. I have seen his aircraft at Oshkosh over the years as well as the Mustang gathering a ways back.

Regarding Rod Lewis. Yes, he has scaled back his flying operation and completely given up on racing at Reno. That is a shame, but it's not without justification. The main reason this has happened was due to his divorce where he lost over a Billion dollars in the divorce settlement. If you lost a Billion dollars, you too, would have to reassess your "play toys".

I think we should cut them both some slack, as they do a lot of wonderful things behind the scenes in support of this passion we all love. One example, and this is not widely known, for a while before Rod's divorce, he used to subsidize the entire fuel bill for the annual airshow at Chino. How many warbird owners/operators do you know who would do that?

Before we cast aspersions at owners for not doing things the way we want them done, just consider two things: 1) it's their money and they are gracious enough to share their toys with us, the general public, 2) there is often a lot of "behind the scenes" good they are doing which is not publicly known.

My two cents!

Back in the day Linda Meyer flew many of the aircraft in the collection. I had the pleasure to ride in the P51 Cripes with her at the controls.