Catalina's Airport in the Sky, Alpha Victor X-Ray, the Mountaintop Runway With a Hump in the Middle and a Bison Burger Waiting at the Top

SUMMARY: Catalina’s Airport in the Sky (AVX) is a 1,602-foot mountaintop runway with a hump in the middle, a wild bison herd, and a famous bison burger.

Catalina’s Airport in the Sky (AVX) sits 1,602 feet above the Pacific Ocean on top of a mountain, about 22 miles off the Southern California coast. Its single runway has a genuine hump in the middle, so tall you can’t see the far end when you’re lined up to land. Pilots fly here for the challenge, the view, and a legendary bison burger waiting at the top.

Where Is Catalina’s Airport in the Sky?

The airport, identifier AVX (Alpha Victor X-Ray), is carved into the spine of Santa Catalina Island, roughly 22 miles off the coast of Southern California and out in the open Pacific. It sits at 1,602 feet of elevation, with blue water visible in every direction and the mainland reduced to a smudge on the horizon.

There is no flat ground anywhere else on the island. Catalina is all mountains and canyons dropping straight into the sea, which makes the very existence of a runway here remarkable.

How Did They Build an Airport on a Mountaintop?

The story starts in the 1920s, when the island was owned by the Wrigley family - yes, the chewing gum family. William Wrigley Jr. bought controlling interest in Catalina in 1919, and his son, Philip Wrigley, decided the island needed an airport.

With no flat land to work with, crews blasted the tops off two hilltops and used the rock and dirt to fill in the canyon between them. In effect, they manufactured a flat mountaintop out of two smaller peaks and the valley in between.

Construction ran through the war years, and the airport opened in 1946. But the fill at the two ends settled at different rates over the decades while the middle stayed high - which is why the runway still has a hump in it today.

Why Does the Runway Have a Hump in the Middle?

Runway 4/22 is about 3,000 feet long, and the crown in the center is high enough that when you sit at one end, you cannot see the other. The far threshold is hidden behind the rise. Pilots often describe it as landing on the deck of a ship that stops in the middle of the runway.

That optical illusion is the airport’s signature challenge. It intimidates first-timers, but with the right preparation it’s entirely manageable.

Is Catalina Airport Hard to Fly Into?

It deserves respect, not fear. Several factors stack up here that don’t exist at a sea-level field:

• Density altitude. At 1,602 feet elevation on a warm California afternoon, the air thins out and density altitude climbs sharply. Your aircraft won’t perform like it does at sea level, and your takeoff-chart numbers become very real.
• No overrun. The ground drops away into canyon off both ends of the runway. There is no stopway and no room to float - when the pavement ends, the mountain ends with it.
• The channel crossing. There’s a lot of open Pacific between the mainland and the island, with nowhere to land in between.

The move is to fly it by the book: know your numbers, commit to your landing early or go around early, and treat the hump as terrain, not decoration.

How Do I Land on the Runway With the Hump?

Talk yourself through the hump before you ever cross the channel. Expect that you won’t see the far end on final, and know that’s normal. Pick a solid aiming point and fly the airplane onto the numbers.

Do not let the optical illusion push you into ballooning or diving at the pavement. The visual picture will try to trick you - trust your training, hold your aim point, and fly the airplane. Commit early, or go around early. There are no do-overs where you simply add power and float down the remaining runway.

What’s the Story Behind the Catalina Bison Burger?

In 1924, a film crew came to Catalina to shoot a Western and brought a small herd of bison to the island as scenery. When the shoot wrapped, the animals were left behind. They stayed, multiplied, and their descendants still roam the island today as a wild herd managed by the Catalina Island Conservancy.

At the airport’s restaurant - the DC-3 Gifts & Grill, housed in a cozy timber-and-stone building dating to the airport’s 1946 opening - that legacy is on the menu. The bison burger is lean, with a deep, almost sweet flavor beef doesn’t have, eaten at a picnic table looking out over the Pacific with your airplane parked fifty feet away.

This is the pure spirit of the $100 hamburger: you don’t fly to Catalina because it’s efficient. You fly here because the journey and the destination melt into one.

What Else Is There to See at the Airport in the Sky?

The Conservancy runs AVX as a gateway to the island’s wild interior - the jumping-off point for the backcountry. From here you can access hiking trails and see the bison, restored bald eagles, and the tiny Catalina Island fox, a species found nowhere else on earth.

The terminal building is a small museum of aviation charm in its own right, with 1940s art deco touches and walls of photos documenting nearly 80 years of pilots and airplanes passing through.

Why the Airport Almost Closed - and Didn’t

Keeping an airport running on a mountaintop, on an island, is expensive. The runway takes a beating, and a few years back the entire surface needed a full rebuild, with no guarantee the money would materialize.

Then the aviation community stepped up. The Catalina Island Conservancy, which owns and operates the airport and protects roughly 88% of the island as wild land, led the effort to save it. AOPA rallied support, aviation groups pitched in, and donors - many of them pilots who fly here only once or twice a year - put their own money down. The runway was rebuilt, hump and all, and the Airport in the Sky remains open.

Key Takeaways

• Catalina’s Airport in the Sky (AVX) sits 1,602 feet up on a mountaintop about 22 miles off Southern California, built in the 1920s–40s by blasting two hilltops flat and filling the canyon between them.
• Runway 4/22 is about 3,000 feet long with a hump so pronounced you can’t see the far end on final - an optical illusion pilots must plan for.
• Respect the field: high density altitude on warm days, no overrun off either end, and an open-water channel crossing mean you fly it precisely and commit early.
• The airport’s bison burger at the DC-3 Gifts & Grill traces back to a herd left behind by a 1924 film crew that still roams the island.
• Pilots and the Catalina Island Conservancy rebuilt the deteriorating runway when it was at risk, keeping this iconic destination open.