History

Photo & Multimedia Gallery

Under Construction. In the meantime, there are more than 60 videos about Flabob online. Just go to youtube.com and enter the search term "Flabob."

But while you wait, here's some stuff to get you started.   This series of photos illustrates the physical development of Flabob, from a year or so after Flavio Madariaga and Bob Bogen bought it in 1943.

Here it is in 1945, looking Northeast.   The original Riverside Airport was just beyond the threshold of Runway 24.   The very sharp-eyed will be able to see faint remains of the original runway pattern. Only one building is visible -- the WPA tool shed which became the core of Hangar One.

Flavio and his family lived in a circus tent, which he had scrounged from a movie studio, on the Naylor ranch south of the airport.   Naylor also ran cattle and Bert (Mrs. Flavio) had to shoo the cows away from grazing on the family dinner, set out on a picnic table. Something is faintly visible along an old irrigation ditch to the right of the runway, perhaps the actual tent.

By 1946, a "lean-to" had been built onto Hangar One, housing the airport cafe. A new hangar, now Hangar 3, had been finished, and Hangar 5 was under way.   Note the rodeo in the upper left.   Flavio's brother-in-law Lou Krug ran the rodeo for many years.

By 1948, Hangar 5 was complete, and Flavio had scrounged a large number of old GI buildings from Camp Haan, the old antiaircraft auxiliary of March Field, now the site of the National Cemetery. He convinced the authorities that he was a farmer, and so entitled to buy surplus buildings for a buck. None of the GI structures in this photo have survived, but the cafe, flight school building, and airport office are in such buildings added later.

We are happy to report that as of this writing (2009), Nug Madariaga and his National Air College are alive and well in San Diego.

By 1949 the Cafe is in place. The first hundred yards or so of the runway have been smoothed with road oil.   There are the first signs of new residential construction along Carol Way and Capary Street, upper center.

By 1953, a crosswind runway had been added, and the beginnings of suburbanization could be seen.

FLAVIO -- KING OF THE SCROUNGERS

Flavio Madariaga, the architect of Flabob Airport, was one of the greatest scroungers of all time. A popular dictionary says that "to scrounge" is "to obtain by salvaging or foraging," and that fits Flavio.   Here is one example.   In Riverside, on Magnolia near Arlington, where the streetcar line ran, was the Bluebonnet Drive-In. This was the real 40s and 50s American Graffiti drive-in, with car hops, bobby-soxers, guys with DAs and hot rods, and great malts and burgers. Here it is in its prime:

As the world goes, the streetcar tracks were torn up, the hippies replaced the bobby soxers, and the Blue Bonnet fell on hard times and closed.

But Flavio was on the alert, and he bought the building and moved it over to Flabob. He removed the spaceship on the roof (actually, a support for floodlights), the neon and the awning. Some of the windows were filled in.

The building was grafted onto Hangar 6, making it a "lean-to" in airport talk.

And here it is in its current incarnation, serving as the office for our night security person. (And by the way, while we're on the subject, does your airport's night security person have a Ph.D.? No? Well, nyaah, nyaah to your airport.)

The painting is by Luz Maria Perez. See her website www.cebollastudios.com.