Musings: Airport for sale

My earliest flying memories are being in the rear bench seat of my father’s Beechcraft Twin Bonanza with my older brothers. Being the youngest of the three boys in the back seat, I was in the center with no window view. Mom and Dad were up front, Dad flying and Mom keeping track of our youngest brother, still a baby then. I knew the sounds by heart. Full-power takeoff with the roar of those big engines, quickly props reduced to climb and in seconds they were rotating in harmony.

It was later, when I was older, that the story of how my dad became a pilot came to me. No surprise Dad ended up with that T-Bone; he liked big aircraft. Dad went off to World War II, joining the then-Army Air Forces. Quickly he was in the B–29 and his group was flying the Burma Hump.

We never, until much later, got stories of Dad’s war efforts. It really wasn’t until I was engaged and my fiancée was having one of those early get-to-know-you dinners with my parents. After recounting her travels through Asia she asked my dad if he had ever been there. Dad’s answer turned heads around the table: “Sure, I was in Burma once, got shot down there.” We got Dad to tell us the story of the bail-out at 18,000 feet, him finding the crew’s navigator in the jungle, then getting rescued by locals and taken to an English tea plantation for later return to the AAF.

After the war, Dad returned to Palm Springs, California, and got right into flying again. He became a flight instructor and airline transport pilot, and owned several airplanes. Before his Twin Bonanza I know of his Stinson 108 and Cessna 310 by photos. He ended flying with his Twin Commander 680F.

Dad was in real estate development. He found his partner, Ray Ryan, and starting in the late 1950s they developed two square miles of desert about 16 miles east of Palm Springs, named Bermuda Dunes. There were those who said this was way too far out of town to be any success, but time brought development all across the Coachella Valley from west to east. Dad just knew it was going to happen before others.

Being a pilot, Dad knew Bermuda Dunes needed an airport. The airport opened in 1963 with 3,500 feet of asphalt, lots of grass to taxi and park on, and one big 12,000-square-foot hangar with the owner-operated FBO inside. Over 54 years of airport operations, Bermuda Dunes saw many things and many people, but not one dime of federal funds.

Bermuda Dunes saw Hollywood stars, politicians, kings, queens, and many actors who piloted their own airplanes, such as Jimmy Stewart, Howard Hughes, and Arthur Godfrey. Early on, Robert Kennedy came through, and later, presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush stopped at the airport, frequently on their way to play in the Bob Hope Classic (my father was a founding director). Dad was close friends with Clark Gable and Arnold Palmer and many others. He even took his young sons to visit his flying friends, the likes of Paul Mantz, Frank Tallman, and others.

As the owner-operator of Bermuda Dunes Airport, there was no question that each of Dad’s four boys was going to work at the airport. We all pumped fuel; sold charts, oil, and tiedowns; and cleaned everything. We tugged aircraft in and out of the hangar, fixed runway lights, and, when it got slow in the summer, painted the hangar floor. I don’t know how I was the only son to catch the flying bug, but I did. If you worked, Dad arranged for flight lessons. I got to solo young. The certificate followed, but like many I fell away from flying, for about 30 years. Thankfully I am back to flying, back to AOPA, and have my own Beechcraft. I must say nothing is better than flying back to see family and landing once again at Bermuda Dunes Airport, even though Dad has flown west.

Over the years the airport grew. There are now commercial buildings lining the north side and residential homes, some with hangars and field access, lining the south side. These days the airport is up to 5,000 feet of runway, and has two big hangars, lots of T-hangars, a flight school, charter operation, restaurant, and a very busy mechanic shop. There are still Stearmans, Cubs, Cessnas, Pipers, and Beechcrafts of all types. On a cool morning or afternoon, watching them come and go is sheer bliss.

During big events in the Palm Springs area, such as the music festivals Coachella, Stagecoach, and Desert Trip—as well as the BNP Paribas tennis and the formerly named Bob Hope Desert Classic golf tournaments—the airport is packed with piston aircraft and jets. It was quite a place to grow up. I can go there and see memories of Dad walking down the hallway or across the hangar. It is a great place.

Like other private, public-use airports, now that the “built-it” generation has left us, it is time to find the next pilot to take on the airport: Bermuda Dunes Airport is for sale. Sure, there are the real estate developers who look at 115 acres as commercial buildings and warehouses. I want to find that person or group of pilots who love aviation like my dad did and see the potential. The hotel site is still vacant and ready for that right set of eyes that sees things aviation in that special light. I hope I find them.

Michael Dunlevie writes: We had the runway resurfaced last summer and the season for tourism in the Palm Springs/Coachella Valley has just started, so things are doing well. We are still looking for that aviation buyer and fending off the developers that would rip it up for nonaviation stuff. Email [email protected].