LeSving wrote:
if there’s only 100LL, they will think twice (not likely to come at all).
Same for all the Conti/Lycos preferring some kind of Mogas 
First, thank you very much to you and your team speed. You work to improve european GA in adding a new destination and therefore a new reason to fly.
I think Dublinpilot is spot on.
The mandatory stuff would be :
I would add that your goal must be to make a destination out of a runway. Somewhere a pilot would want to spend a night or more. Because the first thing one will look at a potential destination is : what can I do once I landed.
This place would have :
I think the examples are :
Good luck.
One word: LEAP
Runway, incl. stopway/clearway in excellent condition.
Radio operator to coordinate (obviously to protect parachuting activity).
Excellent restaurant (serving both the parachuting and GA community).
Maintenance shop.
Jet A1 AND AvGas/100LL. Cash or credit card.
Grass overnight parking (you can bring own tie down).
Entry and Exit from airfield nice and easy.
Friendly people.
Pricing is reasonable (considering the above)
Someone mentioned “build in” tie down attachment points if tarmac parking. I totally vote for this! There are Mediterranean storms throughout the year, and you want to feel somewhat comfortable if parking for days ir weeks outside.
Good luck with the project. Promise to pass by! Cheers.
LFEY loads of beautiful beaches nearby, tie downs in the form of a chain, plenty of restaurants in the local towns. In summer a road train takes you from the airport into town, bicycles can be hired online, a very friendly club. Easy airspace, RNAV approaches to both ends of hard runway.
Short grass runway for ULMs avoiding crosswind.
LFOO Active airfield. Friendly club short walk to nice beaches or taxi to town for some great restaurants.
St Sebastian and walk to the beautiful walled port town of Fontarabie with loads of good restaurants, a museum, an often typical Spanish festivals.
This is besides the larger towns like Brest, Dinard (taxi to Dinard and boat taxi to St Malo)
There are do many others if you are willing to put yourself out a little or can use shorter runways or grass strips. ULM fields are all over the place just look at Skydemon. Many are within walking distance of beaches, restaurants and hotels. Some are even alongside chateau hotel/restaurants and many will lend you an old (very old) French car to run around in.
Another, IMHO, better example, LECN…
- Mogas (which more and more people are/will be using, either Rotax stuff, or people finally realizing their Lycosaur is perfectly happy with that drink)
- Avgas
- Jet A1
- playa a stone throw away
- reasonable landing fee, as in €7 (guys, this is Spain, any fee for a <750kg =/> 20 is expensive, as in more than any of the fields I regularly use here in CHE)
- friendly
- scenic
- no mandatory hi-vis (as in LEMU and others trying to play big airport)
- maybe hangar availability for transient in case of adverse weather
etc, etc
Looking forward visiting your field
PS
almost forgot… no PPR/PN
I look at all the above suggestions and know some of the costs involved and I wonder “why on earth would anyone want to run an airfield?” Bon courage mon ami.
Lots of good advice, but one thing that some people seem to forget is a reasonably maintained toilet, particularly accessible “out of hours.” As some on this list know, it’s not much of a problem for me personally, but when I’m traveling with my girls…
gallois wrote:
I look at all the above suggestions and know some of the costs involved and I wonder “why on earth would anyone want to run an airfield?”
LOL, I was thinking the same thing
But there are some constants. Pilots like to fly, and they need aircraft, runway, hangars and fuel. Then you also need local pilots, lots of them, you need a club and preferably a flight school or two.
In Norway we are mostly blessed (or cursed ) with Avinor operating commercial airfields all over the country. They are all in close vicinity of cities, and welcome GA of all kinds (except ENGM). Then we have a handful of airsport centers, like Oppdal, Starmoen, Notodden and so on. They are “all GA” and nice places, but except perhaps Oppdal, they are not exactly the places anyone would go to for any particular reason. Then there are tons of small strips, private but open for everyone.
Look at Oshkosh for instance. Except for Air Venture one week per year, why would anyone go to Oshkosh in the middle of peanut farms as far as the eye can see? That single week per year makes up for the rest of the year.
To be honest, this reminds me a bit like the people in the Oslo area. Kjeller is a GA airport (actually it’s a closed and abandoned military airport living on borrowed time). The point is, it’s doomed. The communities there will need another airport. They have come up with all kinds of grandeur and ridiculous plans. A “national center” for GA and so on, with conference hotels and whatnot. Still, they have no concrete site for that airport. The only thing that’s for sure is it will be way out in the middle of nowhere. That will also make it very much irrelevant and uninteresting for anyone but the locals and their flight schools. The only thing that in fact would be remotely useful or interesting for anyone but the locals, would be to add a separate GA runway at Gardermoen.
An airport has to be self sufficient and viable. That can only be done with local pilots and hard work. It doesn’t take all that much either. Even at ENMO (a private little strip) you can rent a cottage (at the airport), and fuel can be arranged etc. Then you can add stuff gradually. Or make a new Oshkosh kind of thing Lots have tried, few have succeeded.
Various previous threads e.g. this contain useful info. Do a search on e.g.
landing fees
Spain is nowadays no cheaper labour-wise than anywhere else in the EU, so the revenue sources need to match the expenses in the same way. Unless you have commercial property income (and that will then continually threaten the airport, because closing it and expanding the commercial property side will always generate more money than aviation activity) you need to recover the expenses from fuel sales, landing fees, and cafe income. In S Europe one often relies on local council funding (chamber of commerce etc) but that involves lots of “lubrication” with heavy lunches, or even bribery, and while it has often worked for decades, the good days seem to be coming to an end.
In general, £/€30 is the minimum viable landing fee, but it exposes you to criticism by a section of the pilot community which, hey ho, spends a few hundred on fuel going there and then types up some crap on social media about the landing fee The UK has suffered from this via the Flyer forum, SD pilot reports, FB, etc but I have learnt that e.g. Germany has the same problem.
So this is the bit I would attack first, and then one can talk about facilities.
This is a great initiative but needs to be structured carefully. Make sure you have an active “social media team”
Have a great cafe
