Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Salinas Municipal Airport is a city-owned general aviation airfield three miles southeast of downtown Salinas in California's Salinas Valley, with a lineage stretching back to a World War II Army Air Base. Today it serves as a busy training and general aviation reliever field for the Monterey Bay area, with an ILS approach to Runway 31 for pilots flying in under instrument conditions.
Salinas Municipal Airport is a public general aviation airport owned by the City of Salinas, sitting in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California. It has no scheduled commercial service, having lost its last commuter flights in 1981, and today functions as a general aviation and flight-training field. Its wartime past as an Army Air Base training ground for fighter and night-fighter pilots gives it a particular interest for pilots exploring California's aviation history.
The airport lies about three miles (4.8 km) southeast of Downtown Salinas, in Monterey County, California. Approach and departure control in the area is provided by NORCAL Approach/Departure on 127.15 MHz, and the field is within reach of the wider Monterey Bay airspace environment.
Salinas has two hard-surfaced, lit runway pairs. Runway 08/26 is the longer of the two, recorded at 5,600 ft from Runway 08 and 5,995 ft from Runway 26. Runway 13/31 is 4,827 ft in each direction and is equipped with an ILS serving Runway 31. Field elevation is 79 ft, with the airport reference point at 36.6628, -121.606.
Radio services at Salinas include an A/D (approach/departure) contact with NORCAL on 127.15 MHz, an ATIS on 124.85 MHz, and a CTAF/Tower frequency of 119.4 MHz. Ground control operates on 121.7 MHz, UNICOM is on 122.95 MHz, and there is an Oakland Radio contact on 122.6 MHz. Runway 31 is served by an ILS for instrument approaches.
The current airfield traces its origins to Salinas Army Air Field, which opened in late 1941 and served as a subpost of Fort Ord under the Fourth Air Force. It processed incoming personnel and trained Army pilots in reconnaissance and observation flying, initially hosting the 69th, 71st and 70th Observation Groups flying types such as the O-38, O-46, O-47 and O-52 on anti-submarine patrols along the Central California coast. From September 1943 the field became a Replacement Training Unit base for the 360th Fighter Group, training pilots on the P-38 Lightning, before the unit moved to Santa Maria AAF in January 1944 and the base was redesignated Salinas Army Air Base. It then supported the Army Air Forces Night Fighter School as an auxiliary field, hosting P-70 (modified A-20 Havoc) and prototype YP-61 Black Widow night fighters; the 548th Night Fighter Squadron was formed there in April 1944, and squadrons from several other night fighter units rotated through during training before deployment to the Pacific and China-Burma-India theatres. An earlier civil airfield, Salinas American Legion Airport (Legion Field), had operated nearby from 1928, running parallel to West Laurel Drive and hosting Pacific Seaboard Air Lines services between San Francisco and Los Angeles from 1933; it closed once the present airfield passed to civilian control after the war.
Salinas Municipal Airport today handles general aviation, air taxi and a small amount of military traffic, and has been without scheduled airline service since Air Trails ended commuter flights to San Francisco and Oakland in 1981. It remains a general aviation reliever airport for the Monterey Bay area under city ownership.