Riverside County Airports

R I VERS IDE COUNTY A I RPORTS gives some background on the quintet of airports in her charge. She shares, “Four out of the five airports were deeded to the county because they were surplus military bases. French Valley is the exception and we built it in 1989 to replace a former airport that was not designed well in terms of its proximity to mountains and the prevailing wind direction.” “What we have,” adds Vicki Powszok, Regional Office Manager for Aviation, “is five different airports that are completely different and have different users. I work out of French Valley for example and it is a huge General Aviation airport with over 250 hangars for rent. The reason we attract so many flights is that this is a big wine production area and so people fly in and out to go to the wineries. There are also golf courses and the Pechanga Casino and Resort. Old Town Temecula brings in tourists as well. The Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival brings in well over 100,000 people a year, for example. A lot of people store their balloons here and use French Valley as their base of operations.” French Valley Airport is in Southwest Riverside County, adjacent to the communities of Temecula, Murrieta, and Winchester. It sits on 261 acres and has a 6,000-foot runway. The airport property offers fixed-wing and helicopter flight training and maintenance facilities, charter flights, avionics repair, upholstery services, hangar space and tie-down rentals, and a full- service restaurant within the terminal. In total, the airport has four flight training schools. In comparison, the Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport has a much longer runway, at 8,500 feet in length, which can accommodate a lot more jet traffic. The airport is in Riverside County’s Coachella Valley, surrounded by the communities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta, and Indio, which puts it in convenient proximity to world-class spas and resorts. There are three FBOs on this field offering fuel, maintenance,