Hughes Airport | |||||||||||
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Summary | |||||||||||
Airport type | Private | ||||||||||
Owner | Howard Hughes | ||||||||||
Operator | Hughes Aircraft Company | ||||||||||
Location | current day Playa Vista, Los Angeles | ||||||||||
Opened | 1943 | ||||||||||
Closed | 1986 | ||||||||||
Time zone | PST (-6:00) | ||||||||||
• Summer (DST) | PDT (-7:00) | ||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 75 ft / 23 m | ||||||||||
Coordinates | Coordinates: 33°58′30″N118°25′01″W / 33.975000°N 118.417000°W | ||||||||||
Maps | |||||||||||
The neighborhood in which the majority of the Hughes Airport used to be; location of the runway is just south of where current day Jefferson Blvd runs | |||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||
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The Hughes Airport( IATA : CVR) was a private airport owned by Howard Hughes for the Hughes Aircraft Company. It was located just north of the Westchester bluffs and district of Los Angeles, California, from 1940 until its closure in 1985. It was directly south of and along Jefferson Boulevard and Ballona Creek, the location of the present-day neighborhood of Playa Vista.
In 1940, Howard Hughes bought 380 acres (150 ha) of the Ballona wetlands south of Jefferson Avenue in south-west Culver City. A total of 9,600 feet (2,900 m) were available for a runway and an unpaved runway 23/5 was operational in 1943. In 1948, 6,800 feet (2,100 m) were paved with asphalt, extended by 1962 to 8,800 feet (2,700 m). [1]
Takeoffs to the west had to be coordinated with nearby Los Angeles International Airport. The field served a number of aircraft and helicopter development projects of the Hughes Aircraft Co. and Hughes Tool Company (Summa Corporation). [2]
At one time, according to Noah Dietrich, it "was the longest runway on the West Coast." [3] : 103, 245
The "Spruce Goose", officially known as the Hughes H-4 Hercules, was built here and moved in sections to the Port of Long Beach where it was re-assembled and made its first and only flight. [3] Afterward, a climate controlled hangar was built there, where it remained until 1980 when it was acquired by the Aero Club of Southern California, which put it on display under a large dome next to the Queen Mary until 1988 when it was sold to the Evergreen Aviation Museum where it sits today. A full-time crew of 300 workers, all sworn to secrecy, maintained the plane in flying condition in a climate-controlled hangar at the Port of Long Beach location. [3] : 210 The crew was reduced to 50 workers in 1962 and then disbanded after Hughes's death in 1976. [4]
By the mid-1990s, the former Hughes Aircraft hangars here, including the one that held the Hercules, were converted into sound stages. Scenes from movies such as Titanic , What Women Want , and End of Days have been filmed in the 315,000-square-foot (29,300 m2) aircraft hangar where Hughes created the flying boat. It also features in the computer game Crimson Skies . The hangar will be preserved as a structure eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Buildings.
The former Hughes Airport is currently occupied by the Playa Vista development.
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in the world. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. The city boasts the "third-most diverse school district in California" in 2020.
The Hughes H-4 Hercules is a prototype strategic airlift flying boat designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II, it was not completed in time to be used in the war. The aircraft made only one brief flight, on November 2, 1947, and the project never advanced beyond the single example produced.
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other products, the Hughes H-4 Hercules aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the Galileo spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile.
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The Aviator is a 2004 American epic biographical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by John Logan. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, and Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner. The supporting cast features Ian Holm, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Gwen Stefani, Kelli Garner, Matt Ross, Willem Dafoe, Alan Alda, and Edward Herrmann.
Playa Vista is a neighborhood in the Westside area of Los Angeles, California. The area was the headquarters of Hughes Aircraft Company from 1941 to 1985 and the site of the construction of the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" aircraft. The area began development in 2002 as a planned community with residential, commercial, and retail components. The community attracted businesses in technology, media and entertainment and is part of Silicon Beach.
The Amazing Howard Hughes is a 1977 American made-for-television biographical film about American aviation pioneer and filmmaker Howard Hughes, based on the book Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes by Hughes' business partner Noah Dietrich. The film starred Tommy Lee Jones, Ed Flanders, and Tovah Feldshuh. The Amazing Howard Hughes recounts the life and times of Howard Hughes, and was made within a year of Hughes's death in April 1976. It was originally broadcast in two parts on CBS on April 13 and 14, 1977.
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Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve is a protected area that once served as the natural estuary for neighboring Ballona Creek. The 577-acre (2.34 km2) site is located in Los Angeles County, California, just south of Marina del Rey. Ballona—the second-largest open space within the city limits of Los Angeles, behind Griffith Park—is owned by the state of California and managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The preserve is bisected generally east-west by the Ballona Creek channel and bordered by the 90 Marina freeway to the east.
Westside Village is a neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles, California.
Meadowlark Airport was a small general aviation airport in Southern California, United States, about a mile east of the Pacific Ocean in Huntington Beach. Meadowlark's IATA airport code was L16. The airport operated privately in the 1940s and operated publicly from the 1950s to 1989.
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McMinnville Municipal Airport is three miles southeast of McMinnville, in Yamhill County, Oregon. The FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2009–2013 categorized it as a general aviation facility. It is across Oregon Route 18 from the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, home to the Hughes H-4 Hercules Spruce Goose flying boat.
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Alsace is an archaic place name. Originally an interurban trolley stop, the name now informally designates an approximately five-block area of unincorporated Los Angeles County in the Westside region, surrounded by the north-of-Jefferson section of Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California.
The Venice–Inglewood Line is a former Pacific Electric interurban railway line in Los Angeles County, California. Service was very sparse, providing a suburban route between Venice and Inglewood.
Naval Air Station Los Alamitos Naval Outlying Landing Fields were a set airfield near Naval Air Station Los Alamitos to support the training of US Navy pilots during World War 2. The support airfields are called Naval Outlying Landing Field (NOLF). For the war, many new trained pilots were needed. The Naval Outlying Landing Fields provided a place for pilots to practice landing and take off without other air traffic. The remotes sites offered flight training without distractions. Most of the new pilots departed to the Pacific War after training. The Outlying Landing Fields had little or no support facilities. Naval Air Station Los Alamitos opened in 1942 and was transferred to the US Army in 1977 as Los Alamitos Army Airfield. Most of the Outlying fields closed in 1945, having completed the role of training new pilots. To open the needed Outlying Landing Fields quickly, the Navy took over local crop dusting and barnstorming airfields. Naval Air Station Los Alamitos was also called Los Alamitos Naval Reserve Air Base. During the war Marine Corps Air Station El Toro also used the outlying Landing Field. The Timm N2T Tutor was the most common plane used for training on the outlying landing fields.