Heard the Buffett classic “Volcano” the other day. In the song, he refers to places he doesn’t care to land – “Nashville, Tennessee,” “Yukon Terri-tory,” the Ayatollah’s head, etc. He does make one reference that has thrown me though – “Comanche Skypark.” Knowing that Buffett is a pilot, I had visions of a one-time, rough prop landing in a mountainous, rural airport forever ruining that destination for Buffett – and him subsequently taking out his distaste for the landing strip in the song. But I have searched an aviation reference book as well as the Web, and I have found no evidence of a “Comanche Skypark.” So my question for all you Parrotheads would be – is “Comanche Skypark” just one of many Buffett metaphors, or is it a real place known for choppy mountain thermals?
There is a privately owned strip in Ione, CA called Camanche Skypark Airport. I have no idea if this is what he is referring to, but it’s possible. It doesn’t appear to be in the mountains, the elevation is only 520 feet.
There are also a number of airports with “Comanche” in the name. None of them are also called an Skypark, but skypark could just be used as slang for any airport. You can search for them here (I can’t link to a search results page).
And, to make this more confusing, there is also a series of planes produced by Piper Aircraft named “Comanche.” He could be talking about an airport that had a lot of Comanches.
Going through a pile of old stuff, and stumbled on a folded up program from Mountain Aire Festival, 1978 at Calaveras County Fairgrounds in California. It was an all day music festival/air show that they ran each year. That year’s show featured Warren Zevon, Jimmy Buffett, and Jackson Browne. Between sets as they were re-doing the sound for each act, there were stunt planes performing.
Just noticed that the program lists sponsors, one of which says “Air Transportation Furnished by Camanche Sky Park, Twin Peaks Ranch”. Buffett’s Volcano album was released the next year, 1979.
Interestingly, talking with one of Buffett’s sound engineers many years ago I mentioned that I was at that show. He remembered it, and mentioned that there were some “issues” that made that one particularly unique and memorable…
Ione does appear to be vaguely close to Calaveras County Fairgrounds, both S of Sacremento (though the only Twin Peaks Ranch I could find was near LA). So it seems likely that Camanche skypark is the one in Dr Lao’s link, and that Buffet discovered it at Gopher’s concert.
And the best part is that the OP is still a registered user (though he hasn’t posted in 3 months). Hopefully he’ll stumble across this thread, get his answer, and finally be able to get a good night’s sleep after all these years.
Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the passing of 9 years and 20 days will prevent ignorance from being fought!
The lyrics to Volcano posted on wikipedia link to the same skypark in Ione, though they don’t give any source for why the author thought that was the skypark being referenced.
I too am kind of curious to know what Buffet’s “issues” were at the 1978 Mountain Aire Fest were and if they were the reason he didn’t want to land there (or maybe he just remembered the name randomly and decided it fit the meter well.)
In anycase, I’ll PM the OP on the off chance that his account is still linked to his PM box.
WAG: ex-Creative Loafing employees get free registration, and some automated script signs on to their accounts once a year to renew all their registrations. Hence explaining the fact that he bothered to pay for registration despite not having posted in several years and the fact that his last log-on is post-mortem.
Although Russ is probably no longer interested in the solution to this issue,
IANAROSE, but wouldn’t planes flying - being scheduled to fly - during sound checks be enough of an issue?
[I always vaguely assumed it was an elevated highway with such terrible traffic that locals referred to it as a Skypark, instead of Skyway, like ‘the distressway’, instead of ‘expressway’.]
Ah, looking at Gopher’s post again, maybe thats what he was saying. My read on the blurb on the program was that the skypark was where the VIPs were flown into, not where the stunt planes were operated out of. But perhaps they did both, or Buffet thought they did both and didn’t really care to find out otherwise.
I actually might be able to get the info you all need. My grandfather, Charles Easterling Sr, actually owns and still lives at Camanche Skypark. The story i’ve always been told as a kid was that my father used to fly with Jimmy and and they had a bad experience once flying into the airport. It is in Ione, CA and it used to be a public airport that my grandparents ran. now is is just a private strip that is rarely used. i just emailed my dad to try to get the details of the actual story. i will let you guys know when i hear back. feel free to PM me.
This is a copy of the text conversation we’ve been having today. I have included some commentary of my own in [brackets]
Me: hey dad, do you think you could send me the details about the story of jimmy buffett and why he doesn’t want to land at camacnhe skypark? curious minds want to know.
Dad: its been a long time but i think it had to do with a combination of a night landing, no lights, and a short runway at the ranch [he is referring to camanche skypark, we call it the ranch in our family] and at angels camp [a small town about an hour from camanche] where the concert with jackson brown was held. Jimmy is a pilot himself but he was scared of our ass backwards country flying. we had a big party in camanche afterward
Me: awesome, thanks. were you flying or was he flying himself?
Dad: I did all the flying, he had a broken leg at the time
Me: haha that is awesome, do you remember what type of plane you were flying?
Dad: it was my plane, a cessna turbo 337 2 engine
this is so random that i found this forum and thread. i was just googling camanche skypark to see if there was any info about its history posted online so i could show it to my 93 year old granfather and 90 year old grandmother who dont know what the internet is. this was the first thing that popped up.
do you get notifications when someone adds something to the thread? i’m not too familiar with forums in general. i want to know if other people who asked years ago would get the info i’m posting today.
