It depends 
A high wing, even a C182, will go flying all by itself quite easily:
The answer to the OP depends on various factors, including how much he values the plane. Long term I would definitely want hangarage. For a few months, maybe not.
Yes high wing vs low wing matters a lot
PS: we had glider with wings sitting 20cm over the grass: it was slow with 35kts stall and very light 600kg but it can land with 30kts crosswind once you enter ground effect and it can stay parked with tires and covers in 60kts winds (at windsock height), go figure !
Tailwheel versus nose wheel matters a lot too. A guy I know used to fly his Cub completely across the US and back every other year to attend the periodic reunion in Lock Haven, where they were made. It took a lot of days each way and one morning he arrived at an airport en route from his nearby hotel to find his plane gone despite having been tied down carefully with screw in anchors.
Some looking around determined that it hadn’t been stolen, it was in a field nearby having blown there overnight. Happily and by some miracle it wasn’t hugely damaged, flipped on its back or anything else too bad. It must’ve somehow just bounced along. So he repaired the damage on site and continued on his way.
I wouldn’t leave an airport without my plane having tie downs in place, and controls locked. I’ll park it without tie downs for an airport lunch stop on a calm day but that’s my limit.
Ibra wrote:
Those bits of concrete are very useful to prevents aircraft from drifting on the ground from lateral forces but they are useless to keep the aircraft on the ground vertically: if headwind exceeds stall speed, the wings should be able to carry 1T MTOW, so 25kg is not enough to stop it, even tie-down ropes to fixed attachment are not even rated for 200kg pull
Indeed. I recall an accident where an aircraft tied down to concrete blocks “took off” in storm and did a fair amount of damage to other aircraft. The investigation report dryly noted that “aircraft are designed to take off with load”.
Thank you all for your insights and for sharing your own experiences. I’m very grateful.
Capitaine wrote:
Excellent! Congratulations in advance.
Thank you! Exciting but also scary :)
The airfield has now told me that they will install tie-downs on the concrete. Fingers crossed.
Sebastian_G wrote:
What kind of aircraft is it
It’s a SR22.
Capitaine wrote:
I would get the space first. You can always move later, or join a waiting list for tie-downs or hangar.
This is precisely what I’m trying to do. I wonder why there aren’t more airfields investing in hangarage? I’m sure there’s a reason…
Ibra wrote:
Attaching the tail and chocks on wheels while locking the controls in full back position does better job in terms of killing the lift from into wind, I understand one should not use parking break on wheels (to avoid breaking fluid leaks and leave some room for “aircraft to stall” in case of gusts) and ideally putting wing & airframe covers (they deteriorate lift and raise stall speed)
Thank you Ibra. Gosh, I need to create a shopping list :)
Congrats Fernando, hopefully you will find a hangar soon !
It’s a nightmare in UKSE unless you build one in your backyard: you need 300m TODR on grass
Snoopy wrote:
There are wing covers with spoilers
Gets breezy in Alaska to park a tailwheel
Fernando wrote:
I wonder why there aren’t more airfields investing in hangarage? I’m sure there’s a reason…
It’s like this everywhere. There are waiting lists all over the place, also here in Switzerland. For hangar, you wait up to several years.
In the UK I can imagine getting planning permission and all that is a bloody nightmare. Here, lots of hangar projects are around but have to fight their way through the courts to get permission.
Two aicrafts flipped over in Croatia during the storm two years ago.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In the UK I can imagine getting planning permission and all that is a bloody nightmare. Here, lots of hangar projects are around but have to fight their way through the courts to get permission.
Sad state of affairs :/
Emir wrote:
Two aicrafts flipped over in Croatia during the storm two years ago.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, I noticed they are both high-wing. This is scary!
