Marine Corps Air Station El Toro (IATA: NZJ, ICAO: KNZJ, FAA LID: NZJ) was a United States Marine Corps Air Station located near Irvine, California.
Before it was decommissioned in 1999, it was the 4,682 acres (19 km2) home of Marine Corps aviation on the West Coast. Designated as a Master Jet Station, its four runways (two of 8,000 feet (2,400 m) and two of 10,000 feet (3,000 m)) could handle the largest aircraft in the U.S. military inventory. While it was active, all U.S. Presidents in the post-WWII era landed in Air Force One at this airfield. The El Toro "Flying Bull" patch was designed by Walt Disney Studios in 1944. It survived virtually unchanged until the close of the Air Station.
The land area originally taken by the air station is planned to be converted into a large recreational center, the Orange County Great Park.
The site is currently used as a filming location for the History Channel show Top Gear.
Read more about Marine Corps Air Station El Toro: History, Base Conversion Controversy, Environmental Remediation, Sale of El Toro, Notable Events, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words marine, corps, air and/or station:
“God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“The Washington press corps thinks that Julie Nixon Eisenhower is the only member of the Nixon Administration who has any credibility—and, as one journalist put it, this is not to say that anyone believes what she is saying but simply that people believe she believes what she is saying ... it is almost as if she is the only woman in America over the age of twenty who still thinks her father is exactly what she thought he was when she was six.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“My companion and I, having a minute’s discussion on some point of ancient history, were amused by the attitude which the Indian, who could not tell what we were talking about, assumed. He constituted himself umpire, and, judging by our air and gesture, he very seriously remarked from time to time, “you beat,” or “he beat.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.”
—Sarah Ellis (1812–1872)