Looked for a farmers field. Millions of them everyone thinks, until you try to buy/rent/lease one for an airfield
You can but it will cost you 10x to 100x the farm land valuation. I am sure I posted this – I put an ad in Farmers Weekly and spent some time on this route. If I had say a C182 I would have had several great proposals.
You can flatten and mole-drain a 1km strip for something like 20-30k. In a suitable location, that will be good enough if the usage is very low. Very few people do that however, because “the whole point” of a strip is that it is cheap.
Tarmac is a great solution but really attracts a lot of attention and more importantly it will be organised opposition. When Shoreham put in tarmac in the 1970s, the locals ran a big campaign saying there will be 747s going there.
The bottom line for me is that all the time Shoreham is there I will not make any move. And I think it is true for most others down here. And for example I know a UL pilot who moved to a farm strip but when he found it waterlogged a lot of the year he bought some share(s) at Shoreham to keep himself flying. I am sure the cost of those shares is way less than getting involved in some new airfield project.
I just don’t think most flyers attach enough value to security of tenure / escape from airport politics / ability to do maintenance in their hangar (worth a few k a year).
I often play with the idea of finding a field for an airstrip around Aberystwyth and I keep an eye out for any likely land. So far, there’s a field near Borth that is likely to get waterlogged at any high tide, and an uneven field near Llanrhystud which is about 250 metres long. I’ve been on the lookout for a few years… Not often that anything comes up though I suppose if I went actively searching I might have more luck, but as Peter mentions I’m sure the price would go up too.
People seem to think there is only tarmac or grass as runway options. there is also gravel which when properly compacted provides a good surface for all weather operation.
I’m acvtively looking for a property to put my own strip in at, but I find it tricky to find something suitable and that I think is reasonable value.
All-weather, all-season = hard runway, right? Pray tell, how did you manage to do it for £10k?
1. We bought the field, and the rest of the farm, about 25 years ago.
2. Like any hill farm, we already had plant (excavator, dumper and roller) for maintaining farm roads, drains and pasture. With hindsight we should have bought a dozer which could have done the job more quickly and would now be useful for other work.
3. Yes, the runway is rock hard, but with a forgiving surface.
4. The marginal costs included fuel, labour and plant maintenance – lots of bucket teeth and welding rods, but we had no major breakdowns.
I could bore you with photos and details, but briefly:
1. Strip what little top soil had accumulated since the last ice age.
2. Install or restore field drains as required.
3. Break and shift a few hard bedrock “drums” or “knowes” left by the aforementioned cold snap. Perhaps 12k tons of greywacke at a very rough guess.
4. Grade the surface with soft graptolite fossil-rich shale from the Silurian seabed (before Scotland and England collided).
5. Broadcast some red fescue seed and wait.
6. Broadcast more grass seed and wait….
For another £40k we could have laid 60 mm of Carpave (tarmac) instead of grass, but it doesn’t last forever and what we have is perfect for nosedraggers, pushers and taildraggers alike.
The only regret is that we could have chosen a steeper field. Ours averages only about 3%, whereas 7-15% would be ideal. However, some pilots have an irrational fear of sloping runways, despite the fact that ab-initio students can and do train at French altiports.
It’s a little easier out here in the west, for sure, and such a romantic notion to own your own airfield. We explored it ourselves, but the social and logistical part of it is what ultimately made us not pursue it: I looked at 2 properties with their own runways a few years ago. Both had dirt strips, one was 1900ft long and the other about 3000ft long. The 1900ft one would not have been possible with the Commander except on cold days and very lightly loaded, the 3000ft one would have been doable almost always. Both had hangars already built on them and a main house. Both we could afford.
But they both had a thing in common – they were in the middle of nowhere. On average, at least 45min-1hr by car to get to any bigger place where you can buy groceries or supplies, and at leas 2-3hrs by car into Los Angeles, depending on traffic. So then the reality would set in – when I’m gone, out of town for work, my poor wife is stuck in the middle of nowhere, far from anything. My boy would have to play with himself or the dog, because it would be too far for anyone else to come visit on a regular basis. Also, what does it mean being able to fly yourself to work in reality? Let’s say you need to be in Los Angeles at 8AM. It takes 45min to fly there, but 3 hrs by car. How are you going to ensure you’ll be there in time? Do you fly there 3hrs early and just sit and wait in the plane at the airport? Because if you leave it until the 45m it really takes, you can bet your a** you’ll have some technical malfunction and by then it’s too late to drive. So you might as well have driven if you’re not saving any time. Or, you’d need a little C172 as a backup plane, which negates any cost saving you might have had by moving to the farm..
No easy solutions, unless you can work entirely from home and have a very understanding family who don’t mind being stuck on a farm.
I prefer the idea of a pilot getaway in a central location in Europe, in a nice area for the whole family, like @wleferrand .
The easiest way would be to be on an airfield or keeping a car at the airfield for the members to move around (I saw the other thread).
It would be a welcoming place with reasonable traffic and a nice management.
I find a place like Aubenas LFHO would be a good candidate (from what I heard). The picture below shows 400nm from it.
It’s in a nice and sunny area with many things to explore, not very accessible by car. The airport management is said to be very nice and there 100LL with CC already.
The problem I see is that such a quiet field won’t match all the wishes of all European GA :
- hard runway and parking
- avgas and JET A1 H24 with credit card
- runway lights
- IAP
- customs for the British guys 
- near nice nature and a fashionable city
So you’ll have to restrict your audience.
But I think a place like this would be busy from people looking for nice time with family and the plane, as well as a nice stopover between N and S Europe. It could be booked all year long.
I am not qualified to calculate profitability.
For the place itself, I would imagine something like a lodge with room for 2 families, but maybe it’s my kind of american dream
PS : several “small” French fields are thinking about setting GNSS IAPs, it sounds feasible for a motivated airport manager. Maybe a group of wealthy pilots & families may trigger somthing at a particular place. I will post about it in a more suitable thread.
Here is 600 nm around the place in Loches. It has a stable for two horses, a little pool, a nice (!!) lodge and 500+ acres of land to carve a runway into.
To keep things simple there would be a fixed fee to use the place and its amenities for the day and another one to stay overnight, with 50% off for children. Who would come?
You should check out Nuits Saint Georges (LFGZ) in Bourgogne/Burgundy, which has a Château/resort at the end of the runway.
Located near Nuits-Saint-Georges, the Château de la Berchère hôtel is a true testimony of France’s history. The Château was built as early as the XVth century, underwent substantial modifications during the following centuries and then was transformed into a luxurious hotel in the 1980s. Today, the hotel is composed of 22 rooms and has many amenities, ranging from a bar to an outdoor pool, private parking lot and aerodrome. The hotel also rents cars when available. Closed from mid December to the end of February. Rooms start at €65.
There are others in France along with a number of airparks, like Berdoues in the Gers.
Simon
@simon32 thanks I’ll definitely check this one out, I grew up very close to that place! (but I haven’t been there for 20 years)
I keep browsing ads for a nice sunny “community” place accessible by air .. anyone sees him/herself spending a weekend there? https://www.patrice-besse.com/maisons-de-caractere-a-vendre/paca/var-propriete-forestiere/ ?
