Like many, I have spent much time perusing the stories and pictures of those of you living what some may call every pilots dream of having your own airplane AND your own strip to fly out of. There are some that stand out in my mind, Mauleguy you just might have the title but Courierguy might not be far behind you for short home strip. Then theres Clear Creek Int'l and Skydive206's nice digs. I hope within the next few years to be scratching out my own 1200' 9 per cent grade slice of heaven and the question occurred to me, how many of you are operating out of non paved, non level, dog legged, uphill both ways watch out for the fill in the blank on short final strips in order to live that dream? I don't mean a strip you went into once on a dare or one you may have visited on a trip to the Frank Church zone, I mean the strip you return to where your bird roosts and you WALK back to the house once you've put her to bed. Now I mean nothing against them that have been able to snag a spot next to a nice paved runway in fact more power to ya, but what I'm looking for is how much will someone put up with in order to name their field Petrol Point, Jackass Field, or Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport.
Here's what I'm asking for: Mandatory-length, slope, elevation, and aircraft you operate out of it. Optional: any other distinguishing features i.e. crescent shaped, power line midfield, peacock crossing, house at both ends or any other thing that would cause the uninitiated to hesitate before landing once they had confirmed that it is in fact an airstrip and not a motocross track.
Those mentioned, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to hear the vital stats if your comfortable divulging them. All posters, everybody loves pictures.

Thanks in advance,
SD

SD,
My home airstrip, Clear Creek International is 1250 feet long. On a good day I can put it down with 900 feet remaining. I need to get rid on three more 80 foot cotton-wood trees on my neighbor's property to make the approach less steep. Right now it's kind of a Maule, or 180 hp Super Cub operation.
As far as advise goes, have whoever grades your airstirp crown it so water will not pool on the runway. Good luck.

James
Clear Creek, Idaho

What you fly and how experienced a pilot has a lot to do with your strip length. When I first built my strip it was 900-1000 feet and that was from tree line to swamp/tree line. Besdies that, the end you normally landed on was 10' lower than the other end. If you ran off the end your plane would have been toast. I oricinally had a pile of wood at the end for a bricade but removed it since I was always able to stop in time. If you went past then end....well there was a 4-5' drop off into swamp with brush and trees. You WOULD have flipped over. I have since cleared an additional 8-900 feet off that end but it is a dogleg due to wetland issues. Put this in googlemaps and you can see where I cleared the additional trees. I still need to get some topsoil put on it and grass growing. You can see on the northeast side there is 100+' of wetland that is mowed but unuseable.
47.201654, -95.123148‎
+47° 12' 5.95", -95° 7' 23.33"

I know a couple guys with short home strips, 600-800 feet long. One keeps his plane at home but the others just use their home strip when the conditions are right. BTW even the guy who keeps his airplane at home has a public airport nearby that he can use (and call the wife for a ride) if conditions don't allow for safe op's at home.

The School I go to has a 1300 ft grass strip that has a road on one end and a fence on the other. so not a whole lot of obstructions. We run a stock C-170B off it all the time some times with 3 people at 95+ deg

For many years, our strip here on the Nizina River was 1,000 feet long with an overall 8 percent grade. We flew Maules, 170s (180HP), 185s and of course Supercubs in here, but always in one direction. Later we lengthened the strip to 2,200 feet with an overall grade of 4 percent, and it is much more comfortable for getting in and out of. It is a very wide 140 feet, but the benefit of that is that it is easier to see bears, moose and other critters while out in the yard.

Might be nice to include airport elevation, too, to get a better perspective. Great idea.

About 1,584,000'. (All you Parks Highway fliers know what I'm talking about)

Mine is 1,300 feet long at 7,600 MSL. No slope, clear approaches can land in both directions. Stock Cessna 180. Usually fly fairly light in and out, especially in the hot summer months!

Mine is more of a front lawn. About 600'. Road and powerline on one end, and a powerline about 400' down the strip. Only obstruction on tye other end is a dugout with trees on one side and big grainery bins on the other. I pretty much always takeoff there, but only land if solo and there is no wind or an east wind. Luckily there is lots of gravel roads that I can use to land on, and also serve as my primary strips in the winter when I don't have my skis on. 2000' elevation. Plan this summer is to build a good strip, 1960' long with no slope.

I'm spoiled. Our home strip is about 3,500 feet, located at 6,750 msl. Nothing fancy, but plenty long. It gives us the luxury of inviting others to stop by in whatever they might be flying. For the summer, I'm going to paint stripes across in 250 foot intervals to keep me from getting sloppy. I also spend a lot of time landing in my quarter-section hay fields, and I think the 1000-1,200 foot length is ideal for comfortable operations at this elevation in my PA-12 in all configurations (amazing how much difference 7,000 feet of elevation makes in terms of actual approach speed and landing roll out).

We kept our PA-11 in another town for awhile, and for our runway we used a 900' elevated two-track dirt road. It had 90 degree doglegs at both ends, and deep borrow pits off each side. It was handy training for keeping your left wheel in the left track (crosswinds were standard), but definitely unforgiving of mistakes. Not the kind of place I would invite casual flying acquaintances.

Anything less than 1,000 feet and I'd be uncomfortable inviting others over unless I knew them pretty well.

P.S. I had some buddies with a Wyoming ranch strip carved out of a hay meadow. Probably 1,200 feet, with a power line horizontally across the middle. Whether on approach or departure, you had to either be under or over the line by the time you got halfway down the runway. It was doable, but go-arounds could get pretty exciting (i.e., you didn't go over). Personally, I wouldn't have put up with it for my home strip.

I like this topic. Ill be following it. Having a home strip is a personal goal that I have set for myself. Keep em coming!

My home strip is 1250' @ 200' amsl power wires at BOTH ends. Close proximity to neighbours houses. Works ok light with Maule mx7 180b but I'm close to a couple of airfields for when conditions are dodgy
Looking at operating a C185 out of this strip in the future, have to work out how to do it quietly

NZMaule wrote:....Looking at operating a C185 out of this strip in the future, have to work out how to do it quietly

Try cutting about 4 inches off each end of the propeller.

Wow Nizina, that looks like someplace good people go when they die!!! Post card!!!

NZMaule wrote:Looking at operating a C185 out of this strip in the future, have to work out how to do it quietly

One of our neighbors flies a C185 with an O-540 Lycoming off of our strip and it definitely rattles your teeth --- but it sure sounds good.

iceman wrote:Wow Nizina, that looks like someplace good people go when they die!!! Post card!!!

I do live in heaven --- and its at an elevation of only 1,600 ft.

My strip is 2400 feet long and around 70 ft wide. Tall trees at both ends.
Field elevation is 460 ft. Identifier is 31AK , grass with around 3% grade.
Pull up in to the yard look out the window and see the plane. 1947 Stinson 108-2

Ken in Alaska

Using the formula : runway length (400') divided by elevation (5460'), mine comes in at .073. Been here for 6 years now, I use less then half for landing, unless it's a strong tailwind. I use all of it for takeoff as that allows less then cruise RPM's lift offs with the 12% or so down grade. This make it nice and super quiet plus gotta to be easier on the engine, just slowly coming alive instead of firewalling it right off. Just like the uphill means I don't use the brakes, what seems like a pain is pretty handy.

My last place a mile away (same mountain) was also 400' but a bit higher, 6150', so it comes in on the universal runway ranking system as a .065. Both have clear approachs, the higher one had a little dogleg and a double fall line (right wing low, then left low, then up). No powerlines thank God, I had them buried.

I used to keep a rig at the Pocatello airport, but so far at the new place if I'm flying I can land it. Shouldn't have said that

1800' long , elev 1800' fence both ends. Ran the 170 off it for years sometimes with 4 people if conditions were good. Cherokee 3 people if fuel is light. it's only 5 miles to the big 5000' runway in town so why take chances.