Cary wrote:You will have more power in your airplane than the Bearhawk you flew at Big Piney, but your extra power won't make much difference in how far you roll before lift off, although it will make a difference in your climb rate.

Why?

Zenithguy, I'm not sure if you trying to discourage or encourage me to do it...That's a pretty rough crowd your hangin out with I'd say your living the dream.

Encourage, encourage, encourage. I always keep bail money for guests like this, you will also. Like others pointed out, I don't plan on coming come in with full fuel and passengers, we adjust accordingly. My point was, it sounds like you can do this with your Bearhawk, it would be easy for you to live this "dream " also once you learned your aircraft.

Specifically regarding the airstrip...I don't think that length, at that altitude, at Southern Idaho DA's and Southern Idaho mud, is of much, if any value. I think it's a pure novelty that will get little actual use and soon be abandoned for more productive ventures, even if that's just sunflowers and storage. Double the length and you've got something, but at that length...no.

Just my take.

I fly off of a 1000 ft grass strip , most of the time I just go by my self , any time the weather is good after work or whatever . if the family wants to go some where and its hot I just pick them up at the local airport. but just having the ability to untie and take off is GREAT !!! there was a lot of pucker factor at first but its all worth it

When I moved onto my new property 10 years ago, I was in the middle of building my current bird. By the time I got the shop built (and drive way, septic system, power, well drilled,and all the other things that go along with moving onto raw rural property) and then jumped back into finishing the half finished plane, it was well over a year since I had flown (working full time on the crane all along, and doing all the construction on the new place myself, this was a very busy time.!

So, plane finished, test flown in Lava Hot Springs for a couple hours, and I was ready to fly it home to the new property for the first time. I got overhead and got a sinking feeling, not reflected in the VSI. My 400' l. 18' w. sloped strip was obviously too short and narrows, so I circled for a while and pondered it. Then I realized I was pretty much committed to making it work, so I settled down and came in and landed. My previous strip of over 20 years was also 400' BTW, but even steeper and higher. Long story short, just like the first strip, I now have the "the groove" figured out on the new strip, the slot, whatever. I now delight in making purposely funky approaches, too high, too low, way off center line, and then just make it work. It's great practice and keeps me sharp, besides being fun. But that's with a LSA type S-7, you probably need a lighter bird or a few more feet for it to be practical. Mine is, even at gross, and with tail winds, but then I use pretty much all of it.

We have a couple strips at the ranch that are 4500' msl and 900-1000' long, no major obstacles. Summer time DA's 6-9K. Personally, don't see 700' being a real issue without obstacles in a Bearhawk. If I was in your shoes there would be no question, it would get built!

Also, have a strip at 5100' msl that is 700-800' long. It is rough and is a take off south and land north. Until it gets "finished," wouldn't fly the wagon there with more than half tanks n just me with high DA's. Still, very doable even in the summer, for the cub it's a piece of cake.

Being able to walk out your front door and fly or work on the plane is awesome. Also, It's really nice to be able to stare at your bird in the evenings, cold beer in hand haha!!!

CamTom12 wrote:

Cary wrote:You will have more power in your airplane than the Bearhawk you flew at Big Piney, but your extra power won't make much difference in how far you roll before lift off, although it will make a difference in your climb rate.

Why?

Just my observation flying virtually identical airframes with different size engines. I've never flown a Bearhawk, but I've flown 172s with 145hp, 150hp, 160hp, 180hp, 195hp, and 210hp engines. While there's a noticeable difference in where a 145hp 172 and a 210hp XP breaks ground (partly enhanced by the CS prop on the XP), there's very little difference between where 180hp 172 with a CS prop and a 210hp XP breaks ground. The XP definitely climbs better, though.

Whee's planning a 210hp engine in his Bearhawk, and he's flown a 180hp Bearhawk. Everything else being equal, the biggest benefit to a little more horsepower that I think he'll experience is increased climb rate, not so much a significantly shorter take off ground roll.

Cary

It also looks like if you ran the strip more corner to corner (remove those trees) you could probably pick up another couple hundred feet. You would be looking at something in the range of 900-950 ft - and at that point you are pretty much good to go.

Cary wrote:

CamTom12 wrote:

Cary wrote:You will have more power in your airplane than the Bearhawk you flew at Big Piney, but your extra power won't make much difference in how far you roll before lift off, although it will make a difference in your climb rate.

Why?

Just my observation flying virtually identical airframes with different size engines. I've never flown a Bearhawk, but I've flown 172s with 145hp, 150hp, 160hp, 180hp, 195hp, and 210hp engines. While there's a noticeable difference in where a 145hp 172 and a 210hp XP breaks ground (partly enhanced by the CS prop on the XP), there's very little difference between where 180hp 172 with a CS prop and a 210hp XP breaks ground. The XP definitely climbs better, though.

Whee's planning a 210hp engine in his Bearhawk, and he's flown a 180hp Bearhawk. Everything else being equal, the biggest benefit to a little more horsepower that I think he'll experience is increased climb rate, not so much a significantly shorter take off ground roll.

Cary

Thanks!

I would have guessed otherwise, I appreciate you sharing your first hand experience!

Someone is growing a crop on that field and the rest of it towards the main road. Let them farm the triangle in trade for letting the center strip be used to takeoff and land. That'll give 14-15 hundred ft., just can't use all of it taking off towards the power line. Farming and flying can live together. Lets make a deal.

Thank's for the input guys. Because of the shortness I'm not going to let the possibility of my own runway motivate us to purchase the place but if we do the strip will get built and landed at least once.

corefile wrote:It also looks like if you ran the strip more corner to corner (remove those trees) you could probably pick up another couple hundred feet. You would be looking at something in the range of 900-950 ft - and at that point you are pretty much good to go.

I'm unwilling to remove those tree which is why I have the strip placed where it is. You're right though, removing those trees would give me about a 900ft runway.

goldfinch wrote:Someone is growing a crop on that field and the rest of it towards the main road. Let them farm the triangle in trade for letting the center strip be used to takeoff and land. That'll give 14-15 hundred ft., just can't use all of it taking off towards the power line. Farming and flying can live together. Lets make a deal.

That's a pasture at the south end of the strip. My wife's uncle puts horses and dairy cows in it. We will propose to him to something similar but we still need space to graze the horses my wife wants.

I fenced mine off Whee, for when I need it, but it's grass, so the horses go on the runway for "ground maintenance" quite often...it helps keep all aspects happy. When they're out of the runway, they don't even look up anymore..even with a noisy 185 or Beaver...they just put their ears back.

The key to making your strip relatively safe is using all the low ground effect available. I'm not sure which trees you don't want to remove, but if the north end trees stay you need to get creative on the south end. A cattle guard where the runway meets the pasture would really help. I have jumped many a fence and returned to low ground effect beyond, but I missed once and damaged a Pawnee. Either way, a rudder turn to parallel the N-S road bordering the pasture will provide more acceleration seconds in low ground effect before the wire on the E-W road. Zooming over that wire would be much safer than engine climbing over the buildings in the intersection.

The thing is...

There is a big difference between landing at a 300ft gravel bar one time when you go fair-weather flying, and wanting to get back to your home hanger every time you fly. At the end of a long day with a load aboard, possibly with undesirable crosswinds or high DA, it starts to become a dangerous proposition.

It seems small for a landing in anything other than suitable weather or with a light loading. You could keep your plane there, but you might not be able to land back at home on a lot of days. So you would need a back-up place to divert to.

Of course, if WW (that's Whee's Wife) wants horses, pretty soon the idea of a runway will be moot, because the Bearhawk will have to be sold to pay for maintaining the horses. Both are pretty darned expensive hobbies!

Cary

hardtailjohn wrote:I fenced mine off Whee, for when I need it, but it's grass, so the horses go on the runway for "ground maintenance" quite often...it helps keep all aspects happy. When they're out of the runway, they don't even look up anymore..even with a noisy 185 or Beaver...they just put their ears back.

Dang John, those are some pretty horses and they look big. Putting the horses out on the runway to maintenance is a better idea and would probly do less damage then my JD D and a sickle mover.

Battson wrote:The thing is...

There is a big difference between landing at a 300ft gravel bar one time when you go fair-weather flying, and wanting to get back to your home hanger every time you fly. At the end of a long day with a load aboard, possibly with undesirable crosswinds or high DA, it starts to become a dangerous proposition.

It seems small for a landing in anything other than suitable weather or with a light loading. You could keep your plane there, but you might not be able to land back at home on a lot of days. So you would need a back-up place to divert to.

I not sure that landing when somewhat loaded would be a big issue but you right about it being questionable when fatigued after a long day.

Cary wrote:Of course, if WW (that's Whee's Wife) wants horses, pretty soon the idea of a runway will be moot, because the Bearhawk will have to be sold to pay for maintaining the horses. Both are pretty darned expensive hobbies

You know, I hear that a lot about horses, and airplanes, and jet boats, and snowmobiles

I have about 1000' at our place... we had a dozer on it to smooth out a pasture torn up by pigs - it is still not smooth. Like mentioned before, unless you have the time and resources to grade, roll, pack, seed it etcetera, you need to add in a safety margin much like a soft field take off.

By myself, on pavement I can be off the ground in less than 250' - with a damp bumpy grass strip it can be as much as 450' with a few crow hops from the bumps.

I don't put the BW on pavement for landing but a smooth strip can be stopped in under 300' pretty easy if unobstructed and at our place it's not uncommon to use the same 450' because you can't get on the brakes as hard with the bumps.

I guess what I am saying is forget the math, there are too many factors that go into it. If it's a good buy do it - when you have some time in the BH fly it in there light and interpolate the rest.

We are going through the same process at the moment JW.

The best (worst?) thing I did, was go visiting small plots of land on a "difficult" flying day. The wife and I have compared them to airparks for instance, and see some advantages in sharing a larger runway (nobody hijack with an airpark living discussion please!). We quickly reached an agreement that we would prefer to have a 1500ft runway and a decent hangar which holds its value, rather than trying to squash ourselves into a smaller section which is only usable by a select few aircraft on a handful of days per month. While our short-term budget doesn't like this decision the larger long-term picture came into play.

Here are a few thoughts to muse on, which I have been playing over and over. These are rhetroical question which follow:

Do you want a return on investment?

A hangar and airstrip will cost you. The day will come when you want to sell and move on, but the investment cost of building a nice hangar may not pay you back at a tiny airstrip. Only a small number of people want a property with a hangar. While this forum is full of likely people, those few aviation enthusiasts who can afford a high-cost luxury item like a hanger would also like a small airstrip. A 600ft runway isn't for everyone.

The quality of the hangar, are you prepared to compromise?

Building a small shed would match a small airstrip and avoid over-capitalising. Is that what you want? To me, a shed is a place to store farm machinery and perhaps a working aircraft. In my somewhat tainted opinion, a piece of precision machinery like an aircraft warrants clean surroudings to faciltiate a long and reliable life. Many will not agree, but it's a personal decision.

Do you want visitors?

Only some aircraft and pilots can manage a 600ft airstrip. While it might suit your plane on fair weather days, its small size may limit the efficacy of your airstrip.

Safety margin...?

It's been covered by others, but just to reiterate that a firm, flat, and grippy airstrip will cost you. Whereas a cost effective airstrip will need some built in safety factor.

And the neighbours?

It sounds like you know the neighbours. When will the neighbours change, and what kind of people will move in? What about the distraction hazard to local traffic, or impact on livestock? We all know the stories about complaining neighbours and legal battles, those cost good money which could have otherwise been spend on a larger airstrip. A larger airstip gives your neighbours more space. I wonder what neighbours would say about low approaches over their property, especially if there's an unfortunately positioned house, road, or stock-pen.

I looked at no less than 20 airports and properties, in 4 different states, over a 28 year period trying to find the perfect set up for me. In the beginning I wanted a place to operate a skydiving business. I followed that career path until I was 40. For the past 13 years until I bought Circle W, I was looking for a place to operate my custome painting business and wanted to include aircraft painting.
The set up I have now works but is far from perfect. It gets soft in the winter and there are many aircraft that can't land on a 2800' grass runway, limiting my customer base.
I guess what I am saying is that there was no perfect scenario inside my budget so I comprimised. The property had senimental value to me and was with in my price range so I went for it.
If the property is something that you and your wife are drawn to, you could comprimise with a less expensive 2 seat plane that will operate out of your 700 ft strip and keep the BH at the nearest airport.

I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and experiences. Battson, those are great questions to think on. I think the key thing here is we aren't shopping for a airport property; if we were this wouldn't be the place. We were offered this place for a good price and I thought we could maybe fit a usable runway on it. I'll need to build a shop to store the other toys so I figured why not make it a big shop that will also fit the airplane. I think it will work, maybe it won't. My wife is pretty sure we could work out a deal with her uncle to extend the runway to ~1200ft but I'm not counting on that.

We already have an airport property in a setting I like with room for a 1400ft runway. Best part is that it is 600ft from a county airport with a 4000ft runway so there is no need for us to build our own. Unfortunately the town is too small for me to move my family there. It's a great place to visit and maybe when the kids are gone my wife and I will move out there.