California Redwood Coast – Humboldt County Airport is in Humboldt County, California, 8mi north of Arcata and 15mi north of Eureka, in McKinleyville, California.The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport. The airport is a federally designated port of entry for civil aircraft arriving in the United States. The airport is the site of the command center for and primary facilities of the United States Coast Guard Air Station Humboldt Bay, which provides rescue and law enforcement for the region north of the San Francisco Bay Area.HistoryThe airport was built by the United States Navy during World War II to test defogging systems. It operated in support of the Naval Air Station Alameda as the Arcata Naval Auxiliary Air Station (NAAS) and was headquarters for the Eureka section of naval local defense forces for the 12th Naval District.In December 1947 a Southwest Airways Douglas DC-3 flying into the airport made the world's first blind landing by a scheduled commercial airliner using Ground-Controlled Approach (GCA) radar, Instrument Landing System (ILS) and Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (FIDO) oil-burning units adjacent to the runway. By the following year the airline had made 1,200 routine instrument landings at the often fog-shrouded airport.
