Am I right in thinking there are 1 or 2 posters on here who own or manage airfields? Perhaps they can tell us what the running costs of an airfield are.
The running costs here at LFFK are not massively high, in aviation standards but that is because we have a lot of volunteers who get together to cut grass, fill holes, change balises(bollards?) , windsocks, runway panels , paint runway markings etc.etc
Airborne_Again wrote:
But this is perhaps not surprising considering that Sweden never had a lockdown or other legal restrictions on movement.
The whole corona situation has been very good for GA here, especially at controlled airfields. For some time (some months) in 2020 we had it all for ourselves. This was not due to restrictions, but simply that no one traveled. Today it is almost back to normal, perhaps 70-80-90% ? I don’t know.
Thinks are different in different areas I guess, but in my area people (the ones left) are struggling as I explained above. I don’t think you will see this in any statistics, because the total volume is roughly the same, maybe even higher. It’s just that flight schools don’t make a community. People have to fly also after they get their licenses.
On another note. Two of those fly-ins mentioned will be at controlled (Avinor) airfield. One at ENVA for those from “the bush” to try some CAS/proper radio and different airplanes, and a navigation competition at ENNM. We got in contact with Avinor at both places and the responses were 100% positive. At ENNM they wanted to use this as a training event for the tower, and promised to stay open as long as we needed. We could have done it with the tower closed, but it’s much easier that way. At ENVA we wanted to do all the flying within the CTR and without FPs for every flight. They said OK, tell us how many will come, and we can add another person in the tower if needed. I promise I will never ever say a negative word about the ATC again 
In the mean time January has been the worst ever weather vise (26 days with storms, meaning blizzards, snow storms). Zero flying. One can only hope this is a sign that it will be excellent the rest of the year
Newbie wrote:
and buy a few strategic airfields in each country, get the fuel companies to compete
Over the past two decades I have looked and moved to buy either bits of land, old airfields, or current airstrips where the owner wanted to get out. I have never been able to complete. Reasons…
1. In the UK the 28 day rule.
2. In the UK plenty of fields, but NIMBY approach really kicks in
3. Existing airfield, totally unrealistic valuations by the current owners.
4. Everyone stands by and lets you do all the work, then mump and moan about no GPS approach to a paved 1200m strip
5. I have seen the numbers of operating small airfields. Economically bonkers.
6. Whilst we all perceive GA is booming 
I really do not think it is, unless you are two miles from Heathrow.
7. I am too old now for all that. I had the pleasure of operating for some years from one of the most beautiful private strips in the UK. But we still had a whole load of hastle, continually. We also did not allow randoms to pitch up. It was bliss. But extremely selfish on the part of the owners but he had learnt by bitter experience of allowing more traffic.
My view.
I suspect that the biggest problem with a new ga-field would be that we are more or less forced to live where we are. We need the job, the family, hobbies etc. and cannot and don’t even want to move 1000 km away just like that. Our airfield in Forssa, Finland does have 800 m paved runway and a hangar for 7 planes (full), no airport fees, hangar 550e/year, avgas sold, the housing in that little town very cheap … but still there is nobody lining up for empty hangar space. The town would probably be awfully happy if a bunch of you move there, build a new hangar and start paying taxes to the town. But you have your friends, your job, your family where you are!
The town owns the land and the little club maintains it and pays small rent for it, which is mostly covered by that hangar fee. So I’m not sure, how much the costs would be if we actually owned the land area – but certainly the running costs would not be higher. But to start such an airfield you would have to buy the property and lay tarmac and build hangars, and it might be difficult to get that money back from few users. Anyway, welcome to visit Forssa – why not make a fly-in in the summer? That would be huge news for the city papers and people. Perhaps somebody would even decide to start working from there – very cheap condominiums are just half a km away from the airfield. Check form google.
hannu
hanski wrote:
Anyway, welcome to visit Forssa – why not make a fly-in in the summer?
It sounds idyllic and a super deal for those involved. If Carlsberg made airfields, Glenforsa at Mull would be up there also. Aviation steeped owner who bought the hotel, which has the airfield. It is a drop in, no hanger no fuel, but super food and beautiful scenery. And accomodation. And a super maintained grass strip.
The point however is that any airfield that succeeds requires some other business aspect to fund it. Be it a maintenance company, helicopter ops, something that spreads the losses from the airfield ops. That is not easy unless you have very deep pockets and can give money away.
If I get to Bergen this summer then I will visit Furssa.
hanski wrote:
Anyway, welcome to visit Forssa
Will do.. I have planned some flying in Finland already.. I didn’t know you sell fuel- lentopaikat.fi says "Polttoainepiste: ei "
Welcome all! Forssa has avgas in a tank owned by the club, so no open sale. But that can be arranged, if we know in advance.
Autogas we can fetch from the gas station 1 km away – I use that in my plane and the club planes are all UL, so they also use autogas. So tell about your arrival in advance and everything can be arranged. Within some 70 km there are a lot of interesting little airfields to visit and many otherwise interesting places as you can see it the lentopaikat.fi which ivark mentioned.
In Scotland, a business man bought farmland on a disused WW2 airfield and made an airfield.. Easter Airfield is growing, with people building hangars for their aircraft.
Unfortunately it is too far beyond Inverness for me, 55 miles from Inverness Airport in the opposite direction.
A syndicated airfield would be a disaster for admin reasons, with too many pilot-owners needed.
I think less along the lines of a syndicated Airfield and more along the lines of a company owned and guided by those that stump up the cash (us) going off to buy a number of airfields across Europe – and by a number I mean 10 in each country at least.
What GA needs to flourish is scale, at the moment we rely on single owner airfields where the owner may have a different idea of what he wants, and if you don’t fit in then screw you.
We need a number of airfields, with raised standards so that we can either drive shoddy fields out of business (to be bought by us) or to get them to raise their game like Sandown, or Gamston etc.
Scale would also help us to keep costs down by negotiating with suppliers for the things GA needs.
But as Peter said earlier, the problem that we have in GA is that everyone is out to get something for nothing in GA and those that aren’t don’t come together to solve issues. Ah well.
