Get the strip in, then call him up on a nice day and take him up, fly him over his home and any other places he wants to check out, and then offer, on an informal basis, to make you and your plane available if his crony's and he ever need to get up again. At the very least, find out where he lives and send him a large aerial photo of his place. In short, brown nose shamelessly, it sounds like he is worth it! This has worked for me for 34 years in my county.

58Skylane wrote:

Skydive206 wrote:Filled out my FAA Notice of Landing Area Proposal form today. County Commisioner says no Conditional use permit required "Go have a good time, Lots of guys do it" I asked for and received an Email stating such. Should close Escrow by the Jan 29th. It doesnt quite meet the "back country flying" qualifications a little more like "back yard flying". Hope Im still welcome here. I dont see a Back Yard Pilot Foum starting anytime soon.

Congratulations!! But (and I really don't mean to be a naysayer!!), I think I would want to get more than just an email from the County Commissioner. I'd be after an official letter with his signature on it. I don't know, that's just me.

Good luck with your venture! Hope it goes well for you!

Great Area! Hopefully between Columbia and St. Lois you'll stay busy. You shouldn't have any problems w/ the county, heck, there's a grass strip just a mile SW and another one 2 miles to the SE.

The Eckerts? strip doesnt look use for years and the Redgate is corn. Down farther sky-vu hasnt been used for years also.

Now if only there was a PT-6-20 powered 206 out there with 29in tires...then we would be talking

The -20 is loaded on the trailer, Prob leave Monday to work on it for a week.

Finally closed on my back yard airstip. Should be landing on it sometime this week. Need to go and buy a tractor and do some leveling, fence work, but no big deal. I will hope to post some photos of the Twin Otter landing on it. Real back country pilots welcome.

Landed at the Ranch. The top couple of inches were wet and muddy but the sub surface was still frozen. Unloaded some logging chains, and cut some trees. Great use for a 206. A little more work before I get the Twin Otter in there. Since this was a horse pasture and it still needs some leveling, Im going to need a turf roll of some kind. Make one out of 55 gal drums? any photos?

Is that the Otter and 206 that I have seen parked at 3SQ for the last couple of months?

Skydive206 wrote: Im going to need a turf roll of some kind. Make one out of 55 gal drums?

I've done a lot of work on turf, and find that most rollers can't apply enough pressure to make a meaningful improvement, particularly those made from 55 gallon drums. I've gotten the best results from renting a single or double drum vibratory roller. These are typically available from larger rental shops, and in my area a smaller one will rent for $200 - $300/day. They do an excellent job of smashing down frost heaves, small ruts, and other imperfections. They work best on soil with a high moisture content (but not on sloppy, flooded ground). Another advantage is that they can roll a runway in no time - probably less than 2 hours start to finish for a 2500 x 100 foot sod strip.

PA12,

I always thought a vibra-roller would get the soil too tight for the grass to do well, is that not the case? In most other farm crops, you want a loose soil, the looser the better.

I have an old pull type construction roller that has a separate engine to run the vibrator part. I haven't run the engine for years, thinking it would kill out my sod. I might see if I can still get it to run. jg

John,
My experience with vibratory rollers on turfgrass has been very positive. Turfgrass roots can easily grow 4' long, and 6' is not unheard of. I suspect this is what allows them to handle rollers. I'm sure there are some soil types and some grass types that are incompatible with vibratory rollers, and I'd think that the really heavy rollers could produce too much soil compaction.

I've seen a North Carolina runway (heavy red clay) with predominantly Kentucky 31 turfgrass benefit from being rolled by a very large vibratory roller. I have also used a 5' double drum roller on loamy/sandy soil with good success.

I've never seen small diameter, low weight rollers - such as the type based of 55 gallon drums - do much good. They just can't exert enough force on the ground to flatten frost heaving or fill in tire ruts or cow tracks. I have seen a large diameter concrete roller that was effective: it was roughly 5' in diameter and 6' - 8' long. That's at least 17.5 yards of concrete!

PA 12, I am going to try it then. My roller is 5 ft diameter and weighs about 5000 lb. I think I'll get it shaking again this spring.

PS: your avatar map, you have most of my states colored in too. Where did you come up with that?

I did not put in a grass strip. What I did is about 18 years ago was to rip, plow and disk up my ranch. We then brought in a self loading scaper with a laser and we moved a lot of material to get even fall on most of my pastures and hay fields. We have been flood irrigating, pasturing and cutting hay off these fields for this many years.

Nice thing about flood irrigation is that there are no gophers to speak of. Last spring I moved a few fences and presto chango, I have a real nice strip. It is orchard grass with a little fesque and clover. After 18 years, the groud is well compacted with a great root system.

http://www.ourairports.com/airports/US-0058/

North of the little airplane it is 1150 ft to the fence. South of the little airplane it is 1150 ft to the fence. The upper 1150 ft is real smooth. The lower 1150 ft has a few lava rocks comming to the surface. They cannot me moved cus they are part of the footing to the great Wall of China. You can see that we flood between checks and the checks are 44 ft appart. It is nice that the winds are strait from th South. They were about 30 mph last night. We get them that way each time a low preasure front comes through. I mostly use 16R when taking off and landing.

Tim

50lb bags of Kentucky Fescue 31at rural king for $21. Good, because I have been rutting it up with the tractor. I have a feeling the grass will grow fast enough around here. Thanks for the info guys.

Creeping red fescue is pretty good.

Tim

Where aobut in new england are you? Were lookin into buying a place in maine and would want to make a runway there. Do you have any neighbors? what did you have to do, get "permission" from the faa to land or something of the sort?

Thanks
Tom

Not in New england here, but the FAA is the same. You do not need permision to land on your property, you just have to have the room without endangering folks. In California there is no state laws that come into effect. In Siskiyou County the zoning laws state that you can have an airstip on agricultural land with a use permit from the planing depatment. Siskiyou county has not said anything to me yet.

Tim

Getting more comfortable getting in and out of my grass strip. Cut some trees and still need to do a little leveling for optimum length and use. The horses had trimmed the grass pretty short in some spots making those places muddy when driven through with the tractor. The 8.50s at 21psi float over it nicely. I think I want to trim back a couple of large trees before doing ops with the Twin Otter. Will wait a little longer before planting the Kentucky 31, It will be nice when the grass is green and thickens up.

Is that the 206 and otter I have seen at 3SQ for the last year

Preforming ops at the Ranch. My pilot was having fun doing real short soft takeoffs and landings. Cant tell in the photo but Im sitting in the door wearing a parachute. Great view of Missouri, just wish it was green already.