The Air Show as a Symbol

The final El Toro Air Show, held last month, was a good reminder of the important role the Marine Corps base has played in Orange County for decades. It also should help keep attention focused on what will become of the base once the Marines leave in 1999.

What is said to have started as a simple open house on the base in 1950, drawing about 15,000 spectators for a show lasting about an hour, had grown by the finale to more than 200 planes on the ground and two dozen performances in the air. The stunning precision of the Navy’s Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Team was, as always, a crowd pleaser.

The base has been a key part of Orange County since its establishment during World War II. Many Marines who served at El Toro stayed in the area after discharge, contributing to the growth of the county.

The more than 1 million spectators at the 47th air show may have been united in their enthusiasm for the stunts overhead, but the future of the 4,700-acre base unfortunately is threatening to tear Orange County apart.

Ballot box planning has left the county divided by two ill-conceived initiatives. At the end of last year supervisors approved the use of El Toro as a civilian airport, but as planning goes forward there is lingering uncertainty and ill feeling.

The air show was an event capable of uniting South County and North County as surely as the proposed airport has divided them. In the years of planning for the reuse of El Toro that lie ahead, county supervisors need to be sure they keep an open mind. Other uses of the base still need to be explored more thoroughly.

There has been no shortage of suggested alternatives to an international airport handling tens of millions of passengers each year. Unfortunately, many have been rejected out of hand as attitudes increasingly become set, for or against an airport. South County is overwhelmingly against an airport. Most Newport Beach residents favor one on the assumption it would mean an end to John Wayne Airport. Otherwise, support for a massive airport at El Toro appears soft, aside from some in the business and development community.

Happy memories of the Marines’ tenure, enhanced by so many years of entertaining air shows, will linger even though we know that there are more difficult planning days ahead for the future of the base.