Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Napa County Airport is a busy general aviation and corporate field five miles south of Napa in California's wine country, between the towns of Napa and Vallejo. It began life as a wartime USAAF training strip and today offers three runways, an ILS approach and a mix of business jets, flight training and seasonal scheduled charter operations.
Napa County Airport, known locally as Napa Valley Airport, sits in Napa County five miles south of the city of Napa and serves as a general aviation and corporate hub for the surrounding wine country. It began as a rough wartime auxiliary strip and has grown into a facility handling everything from flight training and touring light aircraft to business jets and seasonal scheduled charter services. For a simulator pilot it offers a tower-controlled field with an ILS approach, three runways of varying length, and plenty of surrounding corporate and GA traffic to work into a circuit.
Napa County Airport lies between the cities of Vallejo and Napa in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, within the NORCAL TRACON's area of responsibility; approach and departure control is provided on 127.8 MHz. The airport is tower-controlled during operating hours, placing it in controlled airspace when the tower is active. Pilots should also be aware of a Reach Helicopter ramp to the north of the field and a California Highway Patrol ramp to the south, both noted as areas requiring extra situational awareness when operating in the vicinity (faa.gov/apc).
Napa County Airport has three physical runway pairs. The longest, 01L/19R, is 5,896 feet, hard-surfaced, lit, with an ILS serving runway 01L. Runway 06/24 is 4,968 feet, hard-surfaced and lit. The shorter parallel pair, 01R/19L, is 2,482 feet and hard-surfaced but unlit. Field elevation is 20 feet.
Napa County Airport's tower and common traffic frequency is 118.7 MHz, with ground control on 121.7 MHz. NORCAL approach and departure control is available on 127.8 MHz, and the field ATIS broadcasts on 124.05 MHz. UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz. An ILS approach is published for runway 01L.
Pilots calling inbound to the airport are expected to state their intentions clearly, such as full stop, pattern work or touch-and-go, to assist air traffic control planning. Pilots operating in the pattern should remain aware of the Reach Helicopter ramp positioned to the north of the airfield and the California Highway Patrol ramp to the south, both of which are close to the runway environment (faa.gov/apc).
The airport lies roughly five miles south of the city of Napa and between Napa and Vallejo, making the built-up areas of both towns useful general orientation points when approaching from the north or south along the valley.
The airfield originated in the early 1940s as a United States Army Air Forces facility known as Napa Flight Strip, used as an emergency landing ground for military aircraft on training flights. It was later expanded and renamed Napa Army Airfield, becoming an auxiliary field of the Fourth Air Force's Hamilton Army Airfield, and was used to train replacement fighter pilots, primarily on the P-38 Lightning, before their deployment overseas. After the war the property was deeded to Napa County by the War Assets Administration for civilian use, and the airport became a business hub for the then-rural southern end of the county; Bridgeford Flying Service, which opened in the airport's early civilian years, remains in business today as Napa Jet Center. Scheduled airline service came and went over the decades, including Southwest Airways DC-3 flights from the late 1940s to the early 1950s and later commuter operators such as Golden Pacific Airlines and Stol Air Commuter. From 1971 the airport hosted a flight training school operated jointly by International Air Services Company and Japan Airlines, which closed in 2010 amid JAL's bankruptcy reorganisation. The airport's 1960s-era control tower underwent radio, plumbing and electrical upgrades in 2008 and sustained minor damage in the 2014 South Napa earthquake. The parallel runways formerly numbered 18R/L and 36R/L were repaved and renumbered 19R/L and 1R/L in October 2019 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napa_County_Airport).
Napa County Airport today functions primarily as a corporate and general aviation field, with fixed-base operators including Atlantic Aviation providing fuel, hangarage and other ground services; Atlantic Aviation's operating hours are Monday to Sunday, 0600 to 2100 (atlanticaviation.com/locations/APC). The field has also seen a return of limited scheduled passenger operations, with Aero offering scheduled charter flights using Embraer ERJ-135 regional jets and JSX operating seasonal service to Burbank and Orange County in southern California (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napa_County_Airport; napacounty.gov/1003/Airport). The airport is described by the FAA as a medium-sized, primarily corporate and general aviation field attractive to pilots visiting the Napa Valley wine country (faa.gov/apc).
