Just a few minutes north of Burbank lies SoCal’s best kept secret in general aviation. This tiny Airport is home to the The Los Angeles County Fire Department Air Operations unit is based at Barton Heliport, and a number of Civil Patrol Units. It is also where I have enrolled in flight school at Vista Air.

Don’t you just love planes designed before the moon landing?

Here is one of the planes I fly! November 26504. My flight lessons are usually at 8 am, and the planes are very thirsty in the morning. So here is the fuel guy providing some much needed avgas to the the thirsty Cessna’s.

On the left is my instructor Ethan, He is great and I have been really enjoying learning from him. He also took an interest in my film camera and got a shot of me as well. Sadly this will be the last photo from this lens. as I realized I have put a major scratch directly in the center of my beloved FDn 35-105. so that is why the center of the pictures are slightly blurry. Don’t worry though because I have a new one on the way.

Here is another plane I fly! N19688, I believe she is a 1972 L Model.

And she is a little bit different because her speed is measure in miles per hour and not Knots! Somewhat confusing!

And here is the actual school! As well as a row of school planes! Vista aviation is a small school but they do have quite a lot of 172 trainers and so far we have never been without a plane!

The Flightless Birds of Whiteman Airport

I also wanted to use this post to show some of the other planes currently stationed at KWHP. There are a number of older planes tied down here, waiting for their chance to fly again.

Here is a little red Grumman that probably hasn’t flown in a decade.

They say every GA airport has a rotting Twin Beech, and Whiteman is no exception, here is a model 18 waiting silently. Her tail feathers are all ripped up.

Whiteman airport is also home to a very unique bird. This is the one and only Bacon Super T-6. A highly modified T-6 Texan combined with a Lockheed T-33. At some point she was painted with a Soviet livery for a movie, but she is an American bird underneath.

And of course there are lots of airworthy birds too, But I find something charming about the forgotten sunbeaten project planes.