Return of New Cuyama

The town of New Cuyama and its airfield were originally developed in support of nearby and now absent oil excavation. The Cuyama Valley is in the southern half of California, across the mountains and almost directly north of the town of Santa Barbara. Surrounded by rugged terrain home to condors, the area is known for its hiking, seasonal wildflowers, dark night sky, and peaceful slow pace.

Steve Sappington first flew to New Cuyama in the early aughts. He had just transitioned from a Cessna 150 into a new-to-him Cessna 182 and wanted to build time, gain proficiency, and further explore California by air with the expanded range and performance of a Skylane. Flying solo, he stopped into L88 one day and found it charming. He wandered into town to the now-defunct Burger Shack for a veggie burger and vowed to bring his wife, Nancy Schunke, back one day.

“So somehow 10 years went by,” said Sappington. “And I finally said, ‘Nancy, I got to take you back there. In 2019, we went back.’”

"And for me it was kind of like, well, I may not know anything about fixing an airport, but I can help.” —Steve SappingtonEntering the pattern at the end of the hour flight from their home base of Zamperini Field, Sappington noticed L88 wasn’t quite the airstrip he remembered. Weeds covered the partially crumbling runway surface, with the worst of them bunched up at the end of the runway and obscuring the faded numbers. He landed long and realized things had changed significantly in the past decade.

Sappington and Schunke parked and walked into town, this time to the recently revitalized Cuyama Buckhorn hotel for lunch, curious all the while as to why the runway condition was so poor. On their way back to their airplane, they wandered into a building on the field, the Blue Sky Center, and asked what was up. The woman working there, Em Johnson, said their mower broke, and they couldn’t afford to fix it. She explained that the 501(c)(3) Blue Sky Center now privately owned this public-use airport and because of that, public funding was hard to come by. But that didn’t lessen the need for repairs and maintenance.

The airport had been through a series of openings and closures, and was hanging on by a thread to meet CalTrans’ requirements for remaining open. Johnson said despondently that many pilots had flown in and expressed interest in helping, but no one had followed through. Sappington and Schunke could see the pain and disappointment in her eyes.

“And for me it was kind of like, well, I may not know anything about fixing an airport, but I can help,” said Sappington.

Historic Aircraft Days

The Blue Sky Center recently started hosting L88 Historic Aircraft Display Days on every third Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pilots with historical aircraft are invited to fly in and showcase their aircraft “for a minimum of 4 hours, providing the public with a unique opportunity to admire these amazing machines up close at the Cuyama Valley L88 airstrip. Pilots intending to fly in and display their aircraft are required to sign in and out at the Buck Stop Coffee Shop by the Buckhorn team upon arrival and before departure to formally record their visit.”

Both the Blue Sky Center and the Buckhorn regularly host special events—stay up to date and plan a visit around one of them by checking out their websites and social media pages.
visitcuyama.com/L88 

And so, a multi-year effort began. It started with a few informal work parties to clear the weeds and patch the field, even as the airport degraded to the point that it officially closed yet again not long after the couple’s visit. A core group of volunteers from the surrounding area emerged, and they called themselves the L88 Circle. Resources were not surprisingly the biggest barrier, especially water in this perpetually drought-stricken valley, but the small things added up. Individual efforts, water donated from a nearby farm, and even magnetic declination that led the runway numbers to change to ones that required less paint all converged to make reopening within dreaming distance. But even with fundraising, volunteer hours, and a small grant from the Recreational Aviation Foundation, the L88 Circle came up short on funds to repave the runway. But out of the blue, a donor stepped in to help finish the job.

At first, it seemed too good to be true, and Sappington wondered if the messages coming in from a California number and a San Simeon email were real. But real they were, and he picked up a call from William Hearst III of Hearst publishing family and castle fame, an avid California-based pilot who heard about the project and was interested in helping. Hearst flew himself up to L88 and met with Sappington, curious to see the progress so far and ensure that any potential funds would be well used.

After some deliberation with local companies on the cost of repaving versus gravel—and deciding repaving was the best path forward—the L88 Circle contacted Hearst with a cost and the reason why repaving was the best option. With a fresh field, even if they couldn’t secure funding to repave again in the future, a good repaving left the option to downgrade to gravel in the future, leaving a path for the field to stay open. Hearst agreed, and the repaving was approved with the understanding that this would be the one and only grant from Hearst—it was up to the L88 Circle to keep the airport open.

Fast forward to today—L88 is open, with a new runway, new windsock, and visitor log, and the L88 Circle regularly meets at the field and the Buckhorn hotel to help ensure the future health of the field. The L88 Circle and Blue Sky Center hosted the first Enchanted Valley Fly-In over the May 10 weekend.

Looking back on the years-long process, which was at times slowed by the pandemic, Sappington acknowledges that success was never assured. While he and others put everything they could into the project, including countless weekends of unglamorous labor, they also knew it could very well not work out. With one finish line crossed, the L88 Circle did take the time to enjoy the reopening in October 2022, but have since been hard at work continuing to protect the field. No one individual in the L88 Circle takes credit over his or her peers, instead noting that it was always a group effort, using each person’s strengths from the other parts of their lives to create the team that led to success.

Persistence means more than perfection. The New Cuyama Airport is a unique success story that showcases the power of pilots who love a field enough to act and protect it, even when they didn’t know the exact steps needed. If we follow the lead of the L88 Circle, we may be able to protect fields like this for years to come.

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