Chino Airport

Airport in San Bernardino County, California

Chino Airport is a county owned airport about three miles southeast of Chino, in San Bernardino County, California, United States. due to its proximity to the Ontario International Airport and the John Wayne Airport (in Orange County).

Cal Aero Academy was an independent flying school at Chino Airport when World War II started. The U. S. Army Air Forces contracted with the school to provide basic and primary flight training for Army Air Cadets. The Abbott and Costello film Keep 'Em Flying was filmed at the base. During the war, Cal Aero operated the training base with Stearmans and BT 13s. The name "Cal Aero" is preserved at the airport and it can be seen on several buildings. Starting in early 1945, training aircraft surplused by the cessation of pilot training programs, and post war, hundreds of combat aircraft were flown into Chino for disposal. This agricultural area was employed as a vast parking lot for warplanes. Soon, the entire area was filled with everything from T 6s to B 24 Liberators. Most planes met an undignified end in portable smelters which were brought there to melt down the warplanes into aluminum ingots. During the mid 1960s, the field was used as the location setting for the TV series 12 O'Clock High, as the fictitious Archbury Army Air Field, which was home base to the (equally fictitious) 918th Bomb Group. The airfield itself and a number of World War II era buildings were used for exterior shots. Chino Airport is the home of two aircraft museums, the Planes of Fame and the Yanks Air Museum, and the airport is one of the centers of aircraft restoration and preservation with several different companies that do this work at the airport.

On 6 November 2007, a Beechcraft King Air impacted trees 3/4 of a mile past the departure end of runway 26R after takeoff in poor visibility. Both occupants were killed. On 13 June 2013, a private jet crashed into an empty office building near a hangar. Maintenance workers were testing the jet engines when the plane jumped over the chocks and the workers lost control. Since the building was empty, no one was seriously hurt, but the jet was destroyed.