Poso Airport , also known as Poso-Kern County Airport, is a county-owned public-use

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

located four nautical miles (7 km) east of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the " cit ...

of Famoso, in

Kern County Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield. Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California, Metropolitan statistical area. The county ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. It is mostly used for

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation service ...

Facilities and aircraft

Poso-Kern County Airport covers an area of at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

of 635 feet (194 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

designated 16/34 with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

surface measuring 3,000 by 60 feet (914 x 18 m). For the 12-month period ending March 17, 2010, the airport had 1,000

aircraft operations, an average of 83 per month.

History

Built as the Poso Auxiliary Field or Poso Field Aux No. 6, this was a satellite training airfield of

Minter Field Minter may refer to: Places in the United States *Minter, Alabama, an unincorporated community *Minter Village, California, an unincorporated community *Minter City, Mississippi * Minter, Washington State, Hendersen Bay's northwest shore, Carr Inle ...

named for the city of

Poso, California Famoso ( Spanish for "Famous") is an unincorporated community in Kern County, California. It is located on Poso Creek south-southeast of McFarland, at an elevation of . Famoso is located at the junction of State Route 99 and the eastern term ...

, that was renamed Famoso, California. Poso Auxiliary Field covered 400 acres and was used for training

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

pilots in landing and takeoff. The US Army built a 3,000 by 3,000 landing mat airstrip in 1942. The

Vultee BT-13 Valiant The Vultee BT-13 Valiant is an American World War II-era basic (a category between primary and advanced) trainer aircraft built by Vultee Aircraft for the United States Army Air Corps, and later US Army Air Forces. A subsequent variant of th ...

and

Boeing-Stearman Model 75 The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane formerly used as a military trainer aircraft, of which at least 10,626 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Stearman Aircraft became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely k ...

were the most common planes used for training at Poso Auxiliary Field and the Minter Army Airfields. Poso Auxiliary Field was closed on October 8, 1946. In 1950, the west side of the runway became the

Famoso Raceway The Famoso Bakersfield Raceway dragstrip is located in McFarland, California just north of Bakersfield, California, and is known historically as the home to the annual March Meet, also known as the U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships. The strip, l ...

, a

dragstrip A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing Drag racing is a type of motor racing in which automobiles or motorcycles compete, usually two at a time, to be first to ...

. The east side became Poso Airport.militarymuseum.org, Poso Auxiliary Field
/ref>

References

External links

Aerial image as of 4 September 1994
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to pro ...

'' {{US-airport-minor, L73 Airports in Kern County, California

Facilities and aircraft

History

See also

References

External links