Anybody know who owns what appears to be a nice strip, just east of San Jose CA near Isabel Creek/Isabel Valley, off San Antonio Road? We often fly from KLSN to KOAK and overflying this strip - looks fantastic, would love to find out who owns it so that we can say hi and land there sometime...

Here's a satellite shot of it from above
Screen Shot 2019-06-06 at 13.22.31 by evan, on Flickr

I’ve flown over that strip many times when I lived in California and always wished I could land there! The strip is marked with Xs if I remember right.

Here is the google maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/btVMHDMhAa7P8BCm7 Zip code 95140 Santa Clara County.

My guess is the guy who lives by the lake that has a driveway/taxiway leading from the strip to his house. County tax records??

On the old CPA forums several years ago (are those guys still in business?) there was a thread on this strip and other uncharted Norcal landing strips.

Just a wild guess on my part, but someone with the wherewithal to build that strip and hacienda and chooses to do it in that location is probably not looking for a lot of company!

evanr42 wrote:Anybody know who owns what appears to be a nice strip, just east of San Jose CA near Isabel Creek/Isabel Valley, off San Antonio Road? We often fly from KLSN to KOAK and overflying this strip - looks fantastic, would love to find out who owns it so that we can say hi and land there sometime...

Papa Foxtrot wrote:Just a wild guess on my part, but someone with the wherewithal to build that strip and hacienda and chooses to do it in that location is probably not looking for a lot of company!

Yeah... I was about to say: good friggin luck. I have a feeling that a private strip like this, in California, that close to the bay area, has about 0% chance of allowing public access.

I've been nearly completely unsuccessful in my attempts to get access to private airstrips. Maybe that's not totally true - I have been able to go to a couple - but if anyone has any tips on how to do this, I'd really be curious as to the strategy!

If you get a subscription to the BaseMap app Pro version, it has an option to turn on property boundaries with ownership info. It’s very cool. Some of the parcel ownerships are buried deep in corporations, trusts, or the like and hard to find a person to talk to, but it’s a start.

I've occasionally gotten permission to land on private strips after writing a letter (that requires a pen, paper, and stamp, for those unfamiliar) to the registered owners, telling them a bit about ourselves and why we would like to land on their airstrip. Unfortunately the people who said yes always required that we be listed on their insurance policy, which is more expense than it's worth...$14,000 a year in one notable case.

If you don't personally know the owners or have a real need to land there, it's generally wasted effort. From the owners perspective its nothing but a bunch of legal exposure for no tangible benefit. Pretty hard to hold it against anyone for refusing.

In Siskiyou County CA you are required to get a use permit to do an airport. In my case I just keep a bit of pasture extra short. Non of the neighbors have complained as I only use it for or five times a month. We flood irrigate and it is unusable when there is 4" of water in it. Very few have landed at my place due to these circumstances. If neighbors complain cus I have all kinds of folks landing at my place and over flying an elementary school on down wind then I will be in for way too much paperwork and maybe a hard ass county planner in my face. Not to mention liability.

My place is not on the charts and most of you would not even recognize it as an airport. So it would be almost impossible to land at my place.

That Strip is in the Henry Coe State Park. Not airplane friendly

tomv35atc wrote:That Strip is in the Henry Coe State Park. Not airplane friendly

This strip is north of Henry Coe. The old Hoover and Paradise Flat airstrips are in Henry Coe though.

You are right. I think this is just south of the San Antone junction and is a private club, a buddy of mine belongs there. if you zoom way in you can see cabins and docks on the lake.

C180_guy wrote:On the old CPA forums several years ago (are those guys still in business?) there was a thread on this strip and other uncharted Norcal landing strips.

It's amazing how many unchartered there are, especially this time of year when the grass is going away and you can see the markings more clearly...

Yup, it's a long shot - but I figure 1) it's nice to have these all chartered even if just for emergency use so I've been logging them on my foreflight, given that the "oil pressure is rapidly dropping" options in that area aren't great and 2) every once in a while, have heard great stories about how the opportunity to buy or make a friend comes out of taking the time to do a little outreach. Will keep digging, BaseMap idea is great need to look into that. Have also heard of people getting BLM land into a KLM for foreflight, but never successfully managed - anybody had luck with that?

tomv35atc wrote:You are right. I think this is just south of the San Antone junction and is a private club, a buddy of mine belongs there. if you zoom way in you can see cabins and docks on the lake.

From real estate markings this makes sense - looks like a big chunk of land, then a few tiny subdivisions for the cabins on the lake. Any chance you remember the name of the club?

evanr42 wrote:it's nice to have these all chartered even if just for emergency use so I've been logging them on my foreflight, given that the "oil pressure is rapidly dropping" options in that area aren't great

They are charted - all in my head. In other words, if you fly long enough in a certain area, you get to know these strips. Stop playing with you garmen and look out the window! - you will get to know the duster strips in the Central Valley, concrete strips on hill tops and nothing is anywhere around them, etc.

I talked to my friend and his club is a little north of this place. He said it belongs to a real estate guy from San Jose and it is very private

C180_guy wrote:

evanr42 wrote:it's nice to have these all chartered even if just for emergency use so I've been logging them on my foreflight, given that the "oil pressure is rapidly dropping" options in that area aren't great

They are charted - all in my head. In other words, if you fly long enough in a certain area, you get to know these strips. Stop playing with you garmen and look out the window! - you will get to know the duster strips in the Central Valley, concrete strips on hill tops and nothing is anywhere around them, etc.

This is what a co-pilot is for - my eyes are always outside, and my wife gets to play with foreflight and mark them all. That comes with the privilege of creating made up names for each of them based on her whims. Not a bad way to pass the time.