While I have no idea how the planning process works, there are quite a few private airfields in Spain. One reason I can think of is that the land holdings (at least in the South) tend to be much bigger than in northern Europe, IOW no immediate neighbours.
Zorg wrote:
Definitely not possible in: Germany (“Flugplatzzwang”, even for paramotors) Switzerland (the thought already is quite amusing)
There are a few in Germany so it can’t be impossible there. There is a well known one at Wildberg, near Lindau, . I would imagine quite a few of the existing smaller airfields are private property too.
In Switzerland the situation is actually similar. A lot of grass runways of todays airfields are either private property of the club who runs them or are built on leased private or public property. Quite a few have regular fights to keep them open when the lease runs out and people object to the prolongation of the said lease, particularly if part of it is on public land. In recent years, at least one such airfield had to close as the owner of part of the runway was unwilling to renew the lease (Hasenstrick).
Almost all private airfields in Switzerland are more or less public use however but with PPR and massive restrictions. There are some which are for based airplanes only such as Hausen am Albis, Amlikon, Montricher and several others.
There are no airfields which are run on private home properties though there are one or two private heliports. I would think that legally it should be possible to do something like that. The problem would be to convince the neighbours and other “interested parties” such as Greenpeace e.t.c. to not claim objection, in which case you can forget it, even though you might win the subsequent law suits after a couple of decades.
What has maybe more attraction is to operate one of the numerous former auxiliary Swiss Air Force strips. There are quite a few which are run privately now, but mostly again open to others with PPR and restricted numbers of flights. Reichenbach, Zweisimmen and Ambri come to mind as well as Munster and Raron. There are others which are operating but not for the public such as St. Stefan and Mollis (even though Mollis does allow some visitors occasionally).
“On the subject where one could get one’s own airfield easy I’d have to once again point to Bulgaria. There are literally hundreds of former agricultural airfields lying in total wasteland and far enough away from anyone who cares that you could probably fly there for years before someone notices.
One I’ve come across regularly is right on the Motorway Trakia near Belosem.":http://air.belozem.com/ Of course that position is ideal. Next to a motorway and a gas station where they can get mogas for their airplanes and nobody in his right mind would like to live there and object.
That is something I’d think would be most interesting: To find out abandoned military fields and try to revive them or rather to get granted usage rights on them against a certain contractually defined upkeep. Or buy them outright and turn them into airparks or GA airfields. I should think there are many around, but also a lot of opposition mostly in Central Europe to such undertakings, but I would think it would be a very interesting undertaking to take over a readily availabe piece of real estate and run it as either a GA field or a private runway if there is no interest from others.
Generally I’d think the probablility to run a private airstrip is inverse proportional to the density of the population in the said area. If there is nobody,the chance is rather big that nobody will object (unless Greenpeace gets wind of it). In built up areas I don’t really see much chances.
I might also consider investing a few thousand into Barberton, but it’s worth checking first whether these ‘major problems on just about every front’ are going to defy the very purpose of establishing a base there.
Just in case someone fancies buying a small airfield with a short runway in a scenic area in Germany
This one is up for sale:
Airfield for sale
Not sure whether you can move in, but it sounds appealing, if you had the money…
This is another approach – no idea where it is
One case I know that worked was a strip set up adjacent to an established airfield and aligned parallel with their runway.
The locals probably considered it as part of the existing airfield.
The adjacent airfield operators weren’t too pleased, but the users of both had no particular problem.
That strip eventually got a certificate of lawful use and isn’t subject to the same planning restrictions as the adjacent airfield.
That may not be a viable option for most people, but it does open an additional possibility
How many days per year would the average owner use their field? Probably more than they would an airport 45 minutes away if they had their plane at home or down the road.
Just wondering how restrictive 28 days per year would actually be in practice. That’s one use per 12.7 days. During the winter it could be weeks between flights leaving more for the summer.
Of course if you wanted to invite your friends to base aircraft there then it probably wouldn’t work out.
One weekend away => 2 days. So 14 weekend trips per year. Not much to stay current
If you owned several fields, could you just rotate the fields under the 28 day rule and get multiples? Perhaps graze some cattle on the field you’re not using currently (to show it’s still agricultural use), then move the cattle to the other field when the 28 days use is done and start using the next field up the road for the next 28 operating days?
We don’t have the 28-day rule here, but there was a farmer who made an airstrip on his farm a few years ago, he got hauled up in front of the beak after he started operating a Cessna 337 out of it (which is obnoxiously noisy – the neighbours didn’t really care about the Cherokee he was flying before that). He was ordered to return it to agricultural use, which he did. Didn’t stop him flying out of it though – he had barley in the field, and he used to just use the “farm track” that ran through it as the runway (with the wing tips of his Cherokee Six pretty much overhanging the crop! He did stop flying the 337 probably to the delight of his neighbours).
If you own them all, the council will treat it as one under the 28 day rule.
If they are owned by different people, then this solution has been proposed over the years and I have never heard anything about it not working. I think it is rarely used however because it is hard to set up a situation where several aircraft owners have adjacent (or even nearby) properties.
