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Marina Municipal Airport (KOAR) is a city-owned general aviation field two miles east of downtown Marina in Monterey County, California, built on the former Fritzsche Army Air Field at Fort Ord. It offers a single hard-surfaced runway and hosts a mix of flight training, skydiving operations and specialised research flying, making it a useful and characterful stop for VFR pilots exploring the Monterey Peninsula.
Marina Municipal Airport is a public general aviation airport owned by the City of Marina, sitting on the site of the former Fritzsche Army Air Field within the old Fort Ord military reservation. It is a single-runway field that supports a variety of activity beyond routine touch-and-goes, including a resident skydiving operation and a Naval Postgraduate School research unit, giving it more personality than a typical small-town strip and making it a worthwhile destination for a simulated cross-country along the Monterey Bay coast.
The airport lies about two miles east of the central business district of Marina, in Monterey County, California, on land that once formed part of the Fort Ord military installation. The published approach and departure frequency for Northern California TRACON (NORCAL APP/DEP) indicates that traffic to and from the field is worked by that facility for arrivals and departures beyond the immediate airport environment.
Marina Municipal has a single physical runway, 11/29, aligned north-west to south-east. It is 3,486 feet long, has a hard (asphalt) surface, and is lit for night operations. There is no ILS or other instrument landing system installed.
The field is non-towered. Local traffic and self-announce calls use the CTAF/UNICOM frequency of 122.7 MHz. For approach and departure services into the surrounding airspace, NORCAL Approach/Departure is available on 127.15 MHz.
As an uncontrolled airport, pilots are expected to make their own traffic calls on the 122.7 MHz CTAF and integrate with any other aircraft in the pattern; specific published circuit heights or noise abatement procedures are not detailed in available sources.
The airport sits close to the Monterey Bay shoreline and the former Fort Ord lands, with the city of Marina immediately to the west providing an obvious visual reference when inbound from the coast or from inland approaches.
The airfield began life as Fritzsche Army Air Field, built in the early 1960s as part of the Fort Ord Army post. It continued in military use until Fort Ord closed in 1994, after which the airfield passed into civilian hands and was redeveloped as Marina Municipal Airport under the ownership of the City of Marina.
Today the airport is dedicated to general aviation, business flying, light industry and recreational use, and the city has worked with the University of California MBEST Center on economic development around the site. The Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely-Piloted Aircraft Studies is based at the field, and Skydive Monterey Bay conducts parachuting operations from the airport's south-east side. In 2021 a manufacturing facility for Joby Aviation was approved for construction at the airport, reflecting its continuing role in aviation-related development on the Monterey Peninsula.
