PhotoStories 8: The airport of Santa Catalina, California

PhotoStories 8.          Each of photographs has its own story. Especially the one you get from the plane. We offer to you a new series of PhotoStories taken by the USA 2016 expediton. Today story of the Santa Catalina Airport photo. 

Flying to various islands is my passion. Therefore, I did not want to miss the opportunity of landing at Santa Catalina Island in California during our expedition “Around USA 2017”. This photo was taken during our approach to the airport of Santa Catalina. The airport reminded me of the various altiports which one can find mainly in the French Alps. Altiports being airports at the mountain tops with their runways sloping in one direction.

The airport of Santa Catalina is quite busy with tourists especially from the Los Angeles area. This, despite the fact that to my knowledge this is the only airport in the USA which charges a landing fee.

The fee, however, supports the maintenance of the Santa Catalina National Park, so it is understandable. Besides that it is lower than landing fees charged by most airports in Europe. 

Flying over the island was somewhat stressful as it was mostly covered with low clouds. It was already when were about to give up our hopes for landing here that this view popped up. Our joy was therefore double - for the view and for the fact that we could land here (video). 

Jiří Pruša 

All about the USA 2016 Expedition you can follow here: 

The USA 2016 Expedition took place at August and September 2016. We flew Cessna 182 and we started from Orlando North Aipark in Florida, continued to California and then to the north. Across the Canadian and US borders we flew to the Atlantic coast. Then we headed south where we finished the expedition - again in Florida. All about the expedition you can find on the USA 2016 website (only in czech).