Looking for good airports in the Northwest

"Cirrus" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi Everyone-
I was wondering if I could pick the brains of some of you with more
experience than myself.... Can any of you recommmend some great pilot
destinations in Washinton or Oregon? I'm aware of Friday Harbor and
Hoquiam, but would like to find other airports where a pilot can land
and either easily get into town (without renting a car....) or eat at
one of those great on field restaurants. [...]

Define "easily get into town". I have a fairly high threshold for
walking...30-45 minutes walking time seems perfectly reasonable to me, but
I've talked to some pilots who don't want to walk more than 15 minutes.

One note on walking: if you do decide to go to an airport where the walk is
likely to be more than just a short one, make sure you have some idea of
where it is you want to walk to. The A/FD describes the airport's location
relative to the town, but in some cases the "town" is actually the
incorporated residential area, while the retail areas are somewhere else.


Also, I would skip the $100 Hamburger web site. Without rehashing all the
threads we've already had about that, I'll just point out that the pilot
input pretty much dried up when the owner decided to monetize it.
Ironically, this means the reports are very out of date, and have much less
value than they did when they were made freely available.

With that in mind...

Pretty much any of the larger airports in the San Juans are good
destinations. Roche Harbor Resort (also on San Juan Island with Friday
Harbor) has its own airport, and does great meals. There's also a building
with more casual touristy shops nearby. Eastsound, on Orcas Island, has an
airport about a mile or so north of town, with several good restaurants in
town (I'm partial to Bilbo's, a Mexican restaurant, but the A1 Drive-In is
good for burgers and shakes, Christina's is good for a fancy meal, and there
are other good options as well). On Lopez, the town is a bit on the far
side, but if you're against a long walk there's a taxi (bring a cell
phone...I don't recall seeing a public phone at the airport), or you can
just hitch a ride (last time I was at Lopez, all the drivers still waved to
each other as they passed each other).

I see you already know about Lana's at the Hoquiam airport, but you might
also check out the Ocean Shores or Westport airports. Westport is right
across the road from a coastal state park, and if you follow the road as it
heads north a little then curves west, there are a few restaurants there.
I've never actually walked to town from the Westport, but according to the
A/FD the town is only 1 mile south. You'll have to walk a little farther
from Ocean Shores, but it's not too bad IMHO.

I'll echo the recommendations for Bremerton, Jefferson County, and Pierce
County airports. Though I'll say that the restaurant a Pierce County does a
passable lunch as well. The Jet Deck at Paine Field is standard airport
fare, but they do a decent job with burgers and sandwiches, and the airport
is one of the larger ones around here so you get a wide variety of air
traffic to watch from their second-story deck while you eat.

Last I was there a year or so ago, there was still a good restaurant at
Tacoma Narrows Airport. Unfortunately, you can no longer park right in
front of the restaurant...the airport gave those parking spaces to the
maintenance shop next door (those *******s!). But the walk from the south
transient parking area isn't too bad, and you get to walk past a bunch of
airplanes doing it, so it's not all bad.

At Arlington there's the Prop Stop restaurant at the airport, nice and close
to the staging area for the glider operations if you happen to be there when
the glider club is out working (this time of year, I believe they are mostly
out in Eastern Washington though).

I also really like the restaurant up at Bay View (Skagit Regional) Airport.
When they are busy enough, they have the second floor open, which makes for
an even better view of the operations at the airport than the front-row seat
the first-floor offers.

For a good short-field challenge, I recommend either Cashmere, WA or Pacific
City, OR. At Pacific City, the airport is literally across the street from
the beach. Bring a picnic lunch, or eat at the fish & chips place. At
Cashmere, the town is quite a bit of a walk, but the town has a nice variety
and it's the home of Washington Aplets and Cotlets . Both are worthy
destinations.

This is hardly a complete list, but I think it's enough to get you started.


Pete