Carmel Valley

Carmel Valley Vintage Airfield (O62) was in Carmel Valley Village, at the opposite end of the Carmel Valley Road from the town of Carmel itself.

On our first visit, we flew in from Reid Hillview (RHV) and first took a detour down the Big Sur Coast, then came back.

This picture is taken from the South and shows the relative position of O62 and Monterey airport. In the foreground it also shows a mysterious paved strip on the top of a hill (must be about 3000' high). Useful if you are crossing these hills and need somewhere to land in a hurry.

We've now flown into Carmel Valley several times, and we think it's one of the best (though little known) fly-in lunch places around the Bay Area. It has plenty of choices of great restaurants within walking distance of the airfield, and antique shops, garden nursery and local wineries make for an interesting stroll afterwards.

In this view from the West, you can see how the field is nestled right in the middle of the village. There are noise abatement procedures precluding touch and go's and the field is closed sunset to sunrise. Given that it is unlighted and only 1800' long this is probably a good idea anyway.

The pattern is to the south (right in this picture), 1450' MSL, left traffic rwy 29, right traffic rwy 11. Having crossed over to check the windsock and having heard from someone on the field with the radio, we set up for landing and down we went.

The runway is quite narrow, so doesn't look as short as it is till you are nearly down. However in a C172 there was no problem stopping and turning into the transient parking area. There were plenty spaces with tiedown ropes.

The book describes the runway as asphalt in poor condition, with potholes. It seemed to us to be more like potholes, with occasional pieces of asphalt! However it was pretty smooth, clearly the Carmel Valley Vintage Airport Association looks after it well.

And yes, there was a jogger jogging round the perimeter!

After crossing the runway we came across this notice, and a basket holding useful leaflets, one about the airfield and the other about restaurants and motels in town.

A short walk from the notice board brings you to the Carmel Valley Village's main street. Have a look at what we found.

After a great afternoon, we were ready to go. Since the airfield  is in a noise sensitive environmentis nestled right up to the MRY Class C airspace, the departure instructions came in very handy.

We took off on runway 29, then after crossing the road turned 20 degrees left, to the South. We planned to follow the coast up to Santa Cruz, so we needed clearance through the Class C airspace. Their official frequency is 133.0 but the notes said they prefer you call on 133.5 so we did that.  We climbed out from rwy 29 towards Ormsby Peak and got our clearance and squawk code before we reached it.

Another fun day out, and because O62 is just over 50nm from RHV it even counted as a cross country flight!