Work begins this month on a 30-acre section at Van Nuys Airport that will become a new home dedicated for propeller aircraft. Lead paint and other toxic materials will be removed from the more than 25 buildings dating back to the 1940s when the California Air National Guard used the site. Demolition of those buildings will follow. Van Nuys Airport Director Selena Birk said it was good land-use planning to make the acreage available for the many propeller planes kept around the airport. It puts together similar types of planes and pilots with similar backgrounds. “It creates a warm, welcoming community for them to share a common space,” Birk said. The Air National Guard left the airport in 1989. The site has been used for an annual air show, emergency landings, and by the Los Angeles Fire Department. The site is limited to planes weighing 12,500 pounds or less and historic military aircraft built before 1951. The airport sent out newsletters to the approximately 700 nearby homeowners to alert them to the impending work. While storing a plane in the prop park is voluntary, owners of the aircraft are excited that space has been set aside. Hollywood Aviators, a flight school based at the airport, keeps its eight planes on the east side of the airfield, said its operations manager Bill Woodward. He keeps his personal plane, however, on the west side of the airport, Woodward said. “I think they put a lot of thought into the concept,” Woodward said. “This will work and flow a lot better.” Los Angeles World Airports is negotiating with Pacific Aviation to provide hangars for the aircraft and office space for aviation-related businesses, such as flight schools, aircraft parts and maintenance companies, and avionics businesses. Pacific Aviation provides passenger services and flight operations for major domestic and foreign air carriers. As one of the busiest general aviation airports in the world, Van Nuys has a mixture of jets and piston-powered propeller planes. While it is the jets that ferry in business people coming to the Los Angeles region for major deals, learning how to pilot those jets begins in the seat of a Cessna or other prop trainer. “It has to start from somewhere,” said Elliot Sanders, a prop owner and president of the Van Nuys Propeller Aircraft Association. “We are building that place fresh.” While setting aside space for the smaller planes does create a sense of community, the intent is to create a safe haven for the planes and to get them away from mingling with the jets, Sanders said. The prop park will be an airport within an airport. “They need to do their business and we don’t want to be in their way,” Sanders said.
