Ashland’s hub for those with a passion for flying flings open its hanger doors

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news

Pilots and curious attendees wandered through hangers and between a series of gleaming small aircraft on the Ashland Municipal Airport Saturday afternoon. After a hiatus of five years, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Airport Day’s return landed successfully. 

Ashland City Councilor, pilot and flight instructor Jeff Dahle said his kids — enlisted in working parking for the event — reported over 900 cars. Food trucks sold out of supplies by noon. And pilots came from around the region. 

Bob Kuykendall leaned on the wing of his friend’s glider. His own glider aircraft was at home in Montague, east of Yreka, he said. But the blue and white smaller plane to the right, he and his friend in Talent built together from a kit. There is a small but strong subset of the American population building planes from kits, he said. Many do it as a gesture of self-reliance. 

“There are as many reasons to build a plane as there are people. …. The best reason to build a plane is because you want to build a plane. The worst reason is because you want to fly,” he said. 

Some tinker for 40 years before ever taking their plane to the sky. Some retire and do nothing but build and have a plane from a kit in nine months, he said. The little blue and white plane he and his friend built in about two years. For himself, he enjoys looking out the window of his glider and thinking “I built that wing.”

A short distance away Al Eatinger sat in a folding chair under the wing of his Glasair Sportsman aircraft. He estimated he has owned between 15 and 18 aircraft since his first flight June 3, 1959. His first flight lesson was June 9, 1959, he said. 

“I decided this is for me, I want to be a pilot.”

He flew for 32 years as a commercial pilot and has taught over 100 people to fly as a flight instructor. He said “I sold’em,” describing turning other people into pilots. When asked what sells them, he paused to think and watched other small aircraft lifting off the runway into an increasingly pernicious wind. 

“They like the challenge. They like the freedom of it. …. You remember the first time you drove a car? You always remember the first time and you only do that once,” he said. 

Eatinger said in his years of flying he has seen an apathetic attitude to the airport. 

“Some local people don’t understand the importance of the airport. … People come in from all over and land here,” he said. 

The city used to keep the airport illuminated at night, but that was costly. He pointed to an orange plastic looking device mounted on a tall steel pole. The orange device is a beacon, flashing green and white to identify this spot from the air as a public airport. Military airports flash two whites and a green, he said. 

As pilots come in to land, they can click their radio receiver button five times and the airport lights turn on for 15 minutes. The fuel stations at the airport function like self-serve gas stations, allowing pilots to fuel up on their own at any time. 

Dahle walked the runway toward his own plane, a white and mauve 1970 Bellanca Turbo Viking that flies at 200 miles per hour with a single engine. The name is a tip of the hat to Viking shipbuilding, he said. Rapping his knuckles on the wing, he explained beneath the top layer is mahogany and spruce. The wood bends like trees in the wind, making it stronger than steel. The aircraft is more than a machine — it’s a work of art, he said. 

The Ashland native learned to fly at the city airport, saying aviation was something that “just called to me.” As a teenager he worked at a sandwich shop downtown and spent his paychecks on gasoline and flight instruction. Now a flight instructor himself, nothing has dimmed with time. 

“It is still absolutely magic to me every single time,” he said. 

It’s sad but illuminating to fly over the project area for Ashland’s recent helicopter logging project and see the die off of Douglas-fir trees for himself, he said. And, he added, it’s truly special to soar over Crater Lake and look down, or fly close enough to Grizzly Peak to wave at hikers.

Beneath the magic is simple practicality. Ashland’s airport is self-funding, Dahle said, through revenue such as user fees and fuel fees. Around four or five small businesses are at the airport. It’s also used by emergency responders such The Oregon Department of Forestry and Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue. 

The airport was established in 1965, though airfields and aviation were present in Ashland dating back to the 1920s, according to the Ashland city website.  There are a total of 34 hangars, 120 tie-down spaces and about 85 based aircraft, the site said. 

Dahle said he was happy to see the Airport Day event come back and to see it received by people eager to enjoy the beauty of aviation and explore Ashland’s airport. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at morganr@ashland.news.