Departure
91%
vs 95% ▼ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
New Cuyama Airport (L88) is a public-use, paved airstrip serving the small Santa Barbara County community of New Cuyama in California's remote Cuyama Valley. Reopened in May 2015, it has the distinction of being the only public-use paved airport within roughly 50 miles of Los Angeles, making it a useful stop for pilots exploring the high desert country between the coastal ranges and the San Joaquin Valley.
New Cuyama Airport (L88) lies beside the town of New Cuyama in the Cuyama Valley of Santa Barbara County, California. The field was built as part of the Atlantic Richfield Company's (ARCO) development of the town in 1952 and was reopened for public use in May 2015. It is notable to visiting pilots as the only public-use paved airport within easy flying range of Los Angeles for more than fifty miles, sitting in an isolated, sparsely populated valley away from the coastal congestion.
New Cuyama sits in the Cuyama Valley, close to the point where Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Ventura and Kern counties meet. The area is served on the ground by Highway 166, which links U.S. Route 101 with Interstate 5, but the airport itself is well away from any large town or built-up area, surrounded by open valley floor and the hills of the Los Padres National Forest.
New Cuyama has a single paved (hard-surface) runway, orientated 10/28. Runway 10 is 3,914 feet long and Runway 28 is 3,965 feet long. The field elevation is 2,172 feet, and there is no ILS or other instrument approach available.
The original ARCO-built gas processing plant, still in use today, stands prominently just south of New Cuyama and is easily seen from the air, offering a useful landmark for pilots orientating themselves in the valley.
The airport's origins trace back to the 1949 discovery of oil at the South Cuyama Oil Field, which prompted the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) to found and build the town of New Cuyama in 1952, complete with housing, commercial buildings and the airfield itself. The town was for a time considered a prosperous hub of eastern Santa Barbara County thanks to the oil boom, with ARCO funding schools and utilities. As oil and gas production later declined, agriculture returned as the valley's principal industry. The airport fell into disuse for a period before being reopened for public use in May 2015.
New Cuyama Airport remains a public-use paved airfield serving the town and surrounding Cuyama Valley. It is valued by visiting pilots chiefly for its rarity as a paved public airport in this remote stretch of country, well outside the busier airspace closer to the Los Angeles basin.