Flying Fields in Southern California
|
Welcome to sunny California. Here you will find warm weather through out the year, congested traffic, smoggy air, and of course lots of r/c enthusiasts. Next time you are in the area for business or pleasure, send your kids to Disneyland and drop by any one of the local fields. |
|
Mile Square Regional Park, Fountain Valley |
This is the so called "R/C Hobby Heaven" according to several publications. As the name indicates, the park occupies a mile by mile block. The park has 2 lakes for fishing (no r/c boating allowed), nice grassy fields, an archery range, couple soccer fields, two 18 hole golf courses (as if they don't have enough, they are closing the hobby area for more), lots of BBQ grills, just like any other typical family park layout. The center of the park is a huge hobby area which used to be Navy's airstrip. Out of the 3 full scale aircraft runways, one of which is used by R/C airplanes, one used for land sailings, and one for rocketry. Quite often there are companies renting the large asphalt field for shooting car commercials. Also in the hobby area is a nice off road track with 1/8 gas races on Sundays and a 1/4 scale road track.
Eventhough they allow r/c helicopters to fly along side with the fix wings, you have to follow some awkard heli specific rules, and the asphalt is somewhat dusty for heli to be hovering on. There is a r/c club with representatives checking for noise level on weekends, So if you go make sure you have a quiet muffler. Fee: Pedestrians free. Vehicles $2 on weekdays, $4 on weekend and holidays.
|
| Whittier Narrow Recreation Area, Rosemead
|
Similar to Mile Square Park, but this park is divided up into 4 pieces by a freeway and highway. There are couple of lakes for fishing, with one dedicated for r/c boating. There are also several baseball and soccer fields, a firing range, a BMX track, a speedcar track, U-control field, and a golf complex with three 18 hole courses.
The hobby area sits on west end of the main park with "the wall" on one side, 60 freeway on the other, and a "jungle" across the runway. The air field is composed of an asphalt runway next to the "jungle", 2 long taxi ways back to the pits with fences to keep out the spectators (which nobody care), and trimmed grass everywhere else. Many people do not prefer flying fixed wings aircraft here because of "the wall", as it is in the landing approach path. Too low you will end up on the other side of the wall, too high you will be taking a long stroll to retrieve your plane. Then there's the "jungle", with trees, a creek running through it, and some weird people hanging out waiting to grab the remains of crashed planes. While this place might sound terrible for fixed wings, I find it to be the nicest field for helicopter, as long as you keep the heli within the designated boundries. Fee: Pedestrians free. Vehicles free on weekdays, $4 on weekend and holidays.
|
|
Brookhurst and 22fwy, Garden Grove |
This is the home field for Orange Coast R/C Club, basically a school yard leased to the club when the school is not in session. The grass field is relatively small, with 22 freeway on one side, a major street on the east side, and then another street on the south side. On every first Sunday of the month, the club hosts a well run FAI contest, sometime with large number of competitors. Since this field is near the headquarter of Futaba and Airtronics/Kalt, there are factory pilots occassionally testing out new equipments as well as compete at the monthly contest.
Fee: $5 for contest. Membership and Insurance required to fly on non-contest days(see below).
|
|
Abandon car lot, Compton |
Victim of recent recession, this once prosperous auto dealership center now has nothing but a nicely paved road and fields populated by grass / bushes. The flying space is rather limited here, as there are light poles across the flight line and high voltage wires on the other side. The locals kept on telling me not to worry as the heli will never fly far enough to get near the wires, but the thought of my heli taking out power to half of the city still worries me. The flying field is mostly composed of dirt, with a piece of carpet acting as landing pad. The area surrounding the flying field is full of tall grass, sometimes as tall as a person's waist depending on the season. I've been told that these tall grass acts as a good cushion for helis when they crash, but I don't think I want to find out. Fee: Free.
|
|
Sepulveda Basin, Sepulveda |
|
|
Private property, City of Industry
|
This Field is Closed What would you expect from a city named "Industry?" Industrial buildings of course! The owner of this particular site decided to turn the back lot of his building into a R/C field. Similar to the abandon car lot in Compton, the field is composed mostly of dirt and wild weeds. The field is nothing spectacular, but enough to attract both fixed wing and heli pilots from all over Los Angeles. Some of the top heli pilots gather in this area to demonstrate their skills in the afternoons, while the morning belongs to mostly fixed wing pilots. The field has 2 runways crossed in the middle to form a large X, with dirt and grass covering the area and some carpet covered spots for heli to take off from. Fee: $3 for non-members. Free for members.
|
