By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The little plane appears in the eastern sky. Skimming over tree tops, it makes a loop south and then turns sharply north to line up with the runway below. A stiff wind buffets the single-engine Piper TriPacer until it gets below the tree line, touching down gently on the grass runway.
It’s taken Ken Zimmerman just 37 minutes to fly from Eugene to Wakonda Beach State Airport. He’s come for the day with a cousin to do some repairs on his vacation home just a few blocks north – and to go for a joy ride.
“There’s no place like the Oregon coast from the air,” says the 69-year-old Zimmerman, who grew up in Florence and is now a nurse practitioner in Eugene. “I took my first flight with my father when I was four and I’ve been in love with flying since.”
Zimmerman is one of the few but regular users of the state-owned airport just east of U.S. Highway 101 between Yachats and Waldport.
Wakonda Beach State Airport is not widely known. Its grassy landing strip is visible from Wakonda Beach Road that heads east from U.S. Highway 101. By car it’s accessible only by a gravel road leading to a parking lot adjacent to a two-bay hanger and airplane tie down area.
It is one of nine emergency/recreational airports owned by the Oregon Department of Aviation, which is responsible for 28 mostly small airports scattered across the state.
The airport got its start in 1948 when two landowners, Jessie Plankington and Henry McMillan, graded a rough strip 1,700 feet long and 170 feet wide. Four years later they transferred ownership to the state, with the understanding it would be made more useable, according to a history of the airport written in 2006.
The state bought 1.4 acres at the south edge of the runway in 1956 to extend the runway to 2,000 feet. At Plankington’s urging, the state developed plans in the 1960s to acquire more property, expand and realign the runway and make other improvements. But those plans languished and except for some tree removal and runway work, the airport has seen little improvements or upgrades in the last 50 years.
The caretakers and the state
Dick and Martha Jacobs own a busy airplane propeller repair business in Puyallup, Wash. and have a second home in Yachats. It takes them two hours to make the trip in their Cessna 182. They own one side of the hangar, where they store a truck and two lawn mowers. An ultra-light pilot from Waldport has the other side.
State workers used to mow the runway. Then the aviation department hired a contractor. When that stopped the Jacobs stepped in, now flying down once a month starting in the spring keep the grass down. Mowing takes them four to five hours.
“They just did away with it,” says Dick Jacobs, 71. “They did finally donate a lawnmower. Somebody’s got to do it, so I guess that’s us.”
Jacobs says, despite the state’s indifference, Wakonda’s runway is still “pretty good.” It’s crowned in the center and has a good gravel base. It’s not used much in the winter because it gets very soft and drainage ditches along both sides fill with water.
“My personal experience is that they don’t want anything to do with it,” he says. “They pretty much ignore it.”
John Wilson is one of the aviation department’s 15 employees and one of five that oversees state airport operations. He says airports like Wakonda – similar ones on the coast are in Toledo and Pacific City – are important for recreational pilots and for emergencies.
“There’s a need for it,” he says.
While Wilson acknowledges Dick Jacobs’ frustrations and appreciates him volunteering to mow the grass, he admits, “right now there are no plans to make any improvements.”
Twelve of the state’s airports get some federal money. Otherwise, the aviation department is totally self-funded, dependent on aviation fuel taxes, user fees and leases for its budget. Without increases in revenues, Wilson said, there won’t be money for improving small, little-used airports.
The state, which once had 38 airports, almost sold Wakonda in 2005 to someone who would have kept the airport open but developed adjacent land. But the deal fell through, Wilson said, because there isn’t room outside of restricted areas to build hangars or houses.
“It didn’t pencil out,” he said.
The pilots
Bruce King commutes to work from the Wakonda airport. King lives just down the street from the airport with his wife, June. He farms 240 acres of almonds and prunes near Orland, Calif. and twice a month flies down – he has an airstrip on the farm — to oversee the operation.
“I call this home and I call that work,” King says.
King, 66, flew into the airport on a sightseeing trip along the coast in 2010 and fell in love with the area.
“We camped here,” he said. “I walked across the street and six weeks later I owned a house.”
King says he likes to fly up and down the coast – no different than a road trip except he’s in the air – visiting airports in Nehalem, Pacific City, one east of Bandon and another up the Rogue River in Agness.
“On a nice day I’ll just go jump in the plane and go fly around,” he says. “It works really well for us.”
But King, Jacobs and Zimmerman all say that flying in and out of Wakonda takes a bit more skill than required to take off and land at most small, recreational airports. There’s the almost constant wind, tall trees line both sides of the runway, there’s a hill at the south end and utility poles and wires at the north end.
King says he’s seen two accidents since moving here, both pilot error involving landings.
“A lot of people are nervous coming in here,” he said. “It gets turbulent.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people scared off,” said Jacobs.
For first-time visitors, the aviation department even has a warning on its website page for Wakonda asking them to call for landing and takeoff advice.
While the state has no plans to improve Wakonda, Wilson argues the little money the state has tied up in the airport is a good investment. It provides a safe place to land for pilots if they get into trouble and it can be used for larger emergencies, including by the Coast Guard.
There is also an economic benefit to the 15 public-use airports scattered up and down the Oregon coast, he said.
“That Sunday drive … people who love flying, they fly their car they don’t drive their car,” Wilson said.