PilotEdge Forums

A good friend of mine pointed out, quite rightly, that Torrey Pines is not really an active airport in real life...it's a glider port at best.

So, with a little help from some friends, 46CA (Rancho Vallecito) is now the Task-Saturated Penguin hub.

The list of fields associated with the hub is in this sticky thread: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1093

*slow clap* Much better. Unfortunately, Rancho Vallecito appears closed in real life per Google Maps (Xs along the runway), but that's alright -- I'll take a closed-IRL airport with a 2500 foot runway over a gliderport any day I guess the fictional storyline is that Keith bought that house on the strip and turned into a passenger terminal... Wings-style

Happy to see the move to 46CA.

Torry Pines never made it into MyFlightRoute because I had excluded gliderports and heliports from the FAA airport list (an arbitrary decision which I may need to reconsider since helipilot7 got me hooked on the 407).

Rancho Vallecito is still listed so I assume those "X's" will come off the runway as soon as Keith removes the trees and completes the runway resurfacing project.

Tim Krajcar wrote:*slow clap* Much better. Unfortunately, Rancho Vallecito appears closed in real life per Google Maps (Xs along the runway), but that's alright -- I'll take a closed-IRL airport with a 2500 foot runway over a gliderport any day I guess the fictional storyline is that Keith bought that house on the strip and turned into a passenger terminal... Wings-style

I might be wrong, but the airport isn't listed as closed in airnav. It doesn't appear to be uncommon for private airports to mark their runways with X's so that pilots who are flying over don't say, "I wonder what airport that is, let's land there and find out." With GPS so common now that, that's less of an issue (pilots know they can't land at private airports, but in the past, they might not have known exactly where they were).

So, I'm happy with the choice

Per the most recent NFDC facility listing, it still shows Airport Status as "O" (Operational) however the last update from the owner was on 3/8/1989. The airport was activated on 8/1/1981.

In an emergency, I would find the trees on the runway to be more intimidating then the "X's".

An isolated strip 26 miles from the border.....anyone care to speculate about the "cargo" that arrived here?

Ummmm, yeah so I just looked at the satellite imagery. I just remembered, they paint an 'R' on the threshold for private airports, not an 'X'. So....yeah....this place is not being used in real life. And yes, tree ON the runway is a bad sign. *sigh*. I really like the gold swimming pool and the diamond-crusted water tower here, though, I think I'll stay

I say we just make it into our very own private strip.

All we need is someone on the X-Plane and FSX/P3D sides to make us a decent looking airport, and we call it home!

I was looking at the 46CA airport information under Skyvector and found this other remark.

RWY 28 USED FOR TAKEOFF AND RWY 10 FOR LNDG ONLY.
http://skyvector.com/airport/46CA/Ranch ... to-Airport

Would it be safe to assume that we should follow this when landing/departing? If so, that would make CTAF/UNICOM (122.9) communications just a little more important wouldn't it?

That might be because of the ridge just west of the airport. There's no published CTAF, so that's going to make it interesting

That might be because of the ridge just west of the airport. There's no published CTAF, so that's going to make it interesting

Or we could follow the AIM guidance for this case:

From 4-1-11

(MULTICOM FREQUENCY) Activities of a temporary, seasonal, emergency nature or search and rescue, as well as, airports with no tower, FSS, or UNICOM.

122.900