Chickasha, OK (pronounced "chick-a-shay" by the locals) is a home base and destination cited by Wiley Post. He flew there to and from Tucson on November 17, 1928 and December 17, 1928. (Coincidentally, December 17, 1928 was the 25th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight. I wonder if he thought about that.) On both of those flights passing through Tucson he was flying Lockheed Vega NC7954. This brand new Vega was the first "Winnie Mae", c/n24, built on August 12, 1928.

Chickasha Municipal Airport is located southwest of Oklahoma City. I have no images of the airport as it was in Post's day during the 1920s and 30s. However, Chickasha airport looks like this today. Images below were taken by your Webmaster on September 11, 2002 (yes, I just had to fly on this day). The two airborne shots are out the front, through the prop disk over the nose of my airplane.

Left, flying crosswind for runway 35 on approach from the northeast.

Right, final approach for runway 35. Runway 17/35 is concrete. The other two runways (4/22, 18/36) are turf and difficult to see in these images. They are to the right (east) of the paved runway and taxiway. It is these turf runways that Post used, and you can still use them today.

I imagine when Wiley and his passengers landed here, the landscape was pretty much like it is now; plowed fields and grassland with a few trees. The runways, of course, were unpaved.

On the ground, the airport was sleepy that early fall day. Only one FBO, and no rental cars or restaurants were on the field (although some of each are nearby).

On the eastern apron, there were hangars from the WWII era (below, left). On May 3, 1999 the Chickasha airport was hit by a massive F5 tornado.  This really hurt the hangers and now they are just decaying away. But before they were still being used and in good condition. Today, the canvas ceiling insulation is crumbling and falling to the ground, and inhabitants like this tarantula beginning to crawl up the wall (below, right) made their way over and under the debris.

UPLOADED: 01/09/06 REVISED: 08/02/06