Dumb question - I see all these members posting pics and videos of landings in all these cool places - Sand bars, Tops of Mountains, Random fields, Mesa's, etc. Is that legal? Here in Colorado, I fly down to our cabin near Westcliffe and there are a ton of places I'd love to just put her down and smoke a cigar... But I've always thought I'd get in trouble...

So what gives? Are you guy's just a group of rebels or do you get permission? Do I need a secret decoder ring?

Just curious.

Jim

De-coder ring only necessary for full stall cross-controlled high AOA landings involving a light saber, a Jedi Knight, and a super windy Wyoming day

There are quite a few discussions regarding this in other threads - just do a search. Here is one that is somewhat relevant to your question:

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/landing-offroad-11090?hilit=landing%20permission&p=146548#p146548

Make sure the management (or owner) of the land (water) and the FAA allows it. Pretty simple.

Telephone is good thing.

The FAA could GENERALLY care less where or on what you land your airplane. The exception of course might be if you were to land on the grass between runways at Kennedy

The key is: Who owns the land, and do they prohibit aircraft landings.

And, no, that is not always easy to determine.

MTV

Goofy Question for Ya'll...

An aside...
Google: Y'all vs Ya'll


Southern roots.
lc

mtv wrote:
The key is: Who owns the land, and do they prohibit aircraft landings.

MTV

I wish this were true! Then every tax paying pilot could land on any piece of public land out there! But unfortunately those who manage the land think they own it and impose their ideas of what you can and can't do on "thier" land. (An example being the Forest Service where the district rangers decide what's allowable in "thier" district).

CW

Another challenge is BLM land where ranchers have grazing permits. The ranchers also consider it " their" land and that can lead to unnecessary (and unwarranted) conflicts.

Jim-
The best luck we've had here in Colorado is with BLM and private land. Most of these airstrips are uncharted. For example, La Garita was opened by simply asking for permission and working out the liability piece. There are a ton of other private strips that we fly in to regularly that were initiated by scouting Google Sat images, a phone call and handshake. The most landing sites on public property exist within the Western Slope BLM land South of Grand Junction. Those airstrips usually do not have the grazing issues to worry about. There are a couple BLM strips near the San Luis Valley and Front Range that do require coordination due to grazing rights.

There's a group here in Colorado that's constantly working to identify and open new landing areas, although a lot of details have to be worked out before it can be made public. Hopefully these efforts should reduce the need for the "secret decoder ring" as new information is made available.

Alec

Well.... when's the fly-in at your cabin?

d

jaudette wrote:Dumb question - I see all these members posting pics and videos of landings in all these cool places - Sand bars, Tops of Mountains, Random fields, Mesa's, etc. Is that legal? Here in Colorado, I fly down to our cabin near Westcliffe and there are a ton of places I'd love to just put her down and smoke a cigar... But I've always thought I'd get in trouble...

So what gives? Are you guy's just a group of rebels or do you get permission? Do I need a secret decoder ring?

Just curious.

Jim

Jim-

See my recent post in the thread "Organizing the community". It just takes a little research and is pretty simple to get permission or find out if its legal.

AKT

jaudette wrote:Dumb question - I see all these members posting pics and videos of landings in all these cool places - Sand bars, Tops of Mountains, Random fields, Mesa's, etc. Is that legal? Here in Colorado, I fly down to our cabin near Westcliffe and there are a ton of places I'd love to just put her down and smoke a cigar... But I've always thought I'd get in trouble...

So what gives? Are you guy's just a group of rebels or do you get permission? Do I need a secret decoder ring?

Just curious.

Jim

These little BCP planes are just especially prone to carb ice. Whenever you see a plane with big tires, it's because the pilot never knows when or where the engine might conk out.