Chino, CA
Classic SoCal fly-in diner. Walls covered in aviation memorabilia. The real draw is next door.
Home to the Planes of Fame Air Museum and Yanks Air Museum — together housing one of the most important warbird collections in the world, including the only flying Japanese A6M Zero in existence. During WWII, the airport was Cal-Aero Field, one of the largest civilian-operated military flight training schools. Over 10,000 Army Air Corps cadets trained here.
On any given Saturday at Chino Airport, more flyable WWII aircraft will start up and taxi than in most museum collections worldwide. The field hosts three major collections in adjacent hangars, and the airshow culture runs so deep that the Chino school district builds field trips around it. Planes of Fame Air Museum was founded in 1957 by Edward T. Maloney — the oldest air museum west of the Mississippi. The collection runs 100+ aircraft spanning WWI through the jet age, with roughly 40 kept airworthy. They fly a Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero, a P-38 Lightning, a P-51 Mustang, an F4U Corsair, and assorted MiGs, Sabres, and warbirds. Tom Cruise's personal P-51 — the one from Top Gun: Maverick — is based here. Monthly "Hangar Talk" events feature flying demos. Yanks Air Museum, founded in 1973 across the field, focuses on American military aircraft with the stated goal of one of every major type. Flying Tigers Aviation Museum, also on the field, focuses on the AVG and the Chinese Air Force in WWII. Together they make Chino the densest collection of operating warbirds on the planet. The annual "Wings, Tracks, and Wheels" airshow runs the first weekend of May.
On the west side of John Wayne Airport sits a tight, beautifully kept collection of WWII machinery that mostly still flies. Founded in 2009 by Major General William Lyon, the museum's aircraft are all in airworthy condition — the star is a B-17G Flying Fortress named "Fuddy Duddy" that appeared in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! and once carried General Eisenhower as a passenger. Alongside the airplanes (a B-25, an A-26, a C-47, a DC-3) is an unsettling piece of history: a 1939 Mercedes-Benz parade car originally delivered to Adolf Hitler. The docents are often WWII veterans themselves. On the right day, you might catch one of the warbirds taking off.
Orange County's airport started as Eddie Martin's dirt airstrip and flying school in 1923, became an Army airbase in WWII, and in 1979 was renamed for the Duke himself — John Wayne, a longtime Newport Beach resident who died that year. His statue stands in the terminal. A few miles south the land runs out at the Balboa Peninsula, the heart of Newport Beach: the 1906 Balboa Pavilion (a Queen Anne landmark on the National Register, built to lure buyers to what was then "swamp and overflow" marsh), the 1936 Fun Zone with its little Ferris wheel on the harbor, and the tiny Balboa Island ferry. Newport Harbor is one of the largest recreational small-craft harbors on the West Coast — a forest of masts from the air, with the OC coast running south toward Laguna.
At Long Beach (KLGB) you can't miss the Queen Mary: a 1,019-foot ocean liner welded permanently into the harbor. She was the fastest liner in the world from 1936 to 1952, held the Blue Riband for 14 years, and in WWII, painted gray as the Grey Ghost, carried 765,000 troops across the Atlantic, sometimes 16,000 at a time, zigzagging to outrun U-boats. Hitler put a bounty and a Knight's Cross on her; nobody collected. Her last crossing was 1967; Long Beach bought her, pulled the engines, and welded her to the harbor bottom as a hotel and museum. She's had a rocky financial run and has closed and reopened more than once, but as of spring 2026 she's open. Allegedly the most haunted spot in California, depending on which paranormal investigator you ask.