Hollister airport holds on to history of flight
It sits at the north edge of Hollister, either an economic
opportunity waiting to be exploited or a relic of a distant
age.
Whatever it is, Hollister Airport is home to a collection of
people
– mostly men, mostly retired – who are in love with the
impossible idea of flight.
Hollister airport holds on to history of flight
It sits at the north edge of Hollister, either an economic opportunity waiting to be exploited or a relic of a distant age.
Whatever it is, Hollister Airport is home to a collection of people – mostly men, mostly retired – who are in love with the impossible idea of flight.
The airport off San Felipe Road dates back to the dawn of aviation, but it owes most of itself to World War II, when it served as a training station for Naval aviators. Those were the airport’s glory days – hastily built hangars and shops contained at the airbase.
Local girls would flock to USO dances and the Naval flyboys gave Hollister – then a town of scarcely more than 3,000 – a certain devil-may-care attitude.
Once in a while, a local farmer will still turn up a dummy bomb, a relic of training flights of more than 60 years ago.
Ironically, the Hollister Airport of today retains some of its World War II cachet, in the form of several carefully restored airplanes of that era.
Most of the flying machines at the airport are not such rare birds as the handful of Mustangs and Stearmans housed at the airport. The majority of aircraft owners are content to tinker with their Cessnas and Pipers.
It’s a community bound together by a love of freedom. Many of the aircraft owners greet this quiet corner of Hollister as something of a club. A stroll around is likely to produce a cup of coffee and a conversation. One of the regulars erected a basketball hoop outside of his hangar.
It’s a cult of sorts, but the best kind of cult; one devoted to defying gravity and chasing horizons.
