If you haven't seen the AOPA webinar "Enhancing Your Backcountry Experience", please look it up and watch. Some very cool info.
For me, the best part was Mike Vivion and his backcountry practice strip initiative presentation.
What a cool idea! Practice on a virtual 1000 foot runway with plenty margins for safety BEFORE you play in the backcountry.
As a result, the pilots at the Kent Rominger Astronaut Field, KRCV, in Southern Colorado, have decided to mark up our dirt rwy 03/21 as described.
FAA airport directory shows it as "turf, rough". That is the 800' foot to the northeast. The rest is very nice. I land my 206 on it all the time.
The touchdown markers and 100' distance markers will be on the smoothest part of the runway. You will have roughly 1000 feet on either end to play with.
We find ourselves with a very unique training opportunity sitting at 7955 MSL. New to the mountains? Very easily accessible from the South, via Sante Fe NM. You can get here at 9500 MSL from that direction. 11000 over La Veta Pass to the East. Come and see how you and your bird can perform
As I post this, it is 59F and the DA is 9500. most summer days DA around 11,500, mid day. 90F puts it at 12,800 or so. Rare, but it can get there.
Headed to Idaho or Montana? Swing through and sharpen your skills beforehand. We sit in the middle of the best way to thread the Colorado Rockies on your way. KRCV to Gunnison, KGUC, takes you over Cochetopa Pass. Not much need to go over 10,500 that way. Very mellow topography, no major variations in elevation. From there, head west to Montrose and you are through the Rockies.
With our RAF funded Pilot Shelter (camping, shower, full kitchen), Courtesy van and cheap fuel, a great place to come play!!
Thanks again to MTV for taking the time to introduce this backcountry training initiative. I hope other airports across the country will do the same.
Tom

Thanks Mike and Tom. I instructed in Fred Shotenboer's stock C-140 at Monte Vista. Your practice runway will give anyone an up close and personal look at the mountains. Cool is good for lower DA and warm is good for thermal lift in the parks and there is lots of rising terrain around there which provides rising air when utilized properly in the heat of day. Getting off in low ground effect is the easy part. Where now is the ADM part.

Thank you for this excellent post Tom. I’m encouraging a buddy new to Super Cubs from Michigan your way to practice.

“Hitting the spot” while practicing is very important as well!

Mike Vivian—-thank you very much for all you do for the tailwheel, back country and overall pilot community!

Hey, GREAT to see folks trying this out on their local strips. That’s really the purpose of this “initiative”.

The “Practice Strip” idea came from Alaska, where the folks in Fairbanks marked out a practice strip on the ski strip at FAI. I have a PDF document that describes their efforts, and it's excellent. See attachment.

In any case, the idea is to mark out a roughly 1000 foot long by 25 foot wide "Practice strip" within the confines of a larger airport. Surface needs to be other than pavement or concrete. Too much opportunity for braking to upend someone on hard surfaces. So, turf or gravel/dirt surfaces. The beginning of the "Practice Runway" will be about 200 feet from the actual threshold, so a landing that's short of the mark will cause no harm. From the threshold, side marks that are white and 2 feet by 4 feet, will be spaced each 100 feet down the runway....to the 1000 foot marks.

This offers folks to practice landing on a "sorta" confined area, and with the marks each 100 feet, it's easy to get a pretty good handle on landing and takeoff distance.

On dirt or gravel surfaces, white latex paint is the best choice of markings. We're experimenting with various forms of "chalk" on grass runways.

I’m trying to get as many of these set up as we can. Density altitude is one of the beauties of these strips.....a pilot can go out early AM in cool temps, and evaluate performance, then come back in the afternoon and compare. That can offer a deeply moving experience, especially for folks who operate at lower elevations.

Thanks for picking up on this and taking the initiative to put it into practice! If anyone is interested in doing something like this at their local airport (with permission of airport management, of course), let me know via PM and I'll send you a copy of the PDF.

MTV

Done! it took all of an hour. Six guys. Three doing layout and three placing the markers and end stripes. Super easy!
I made a 48x24 rectangle stencil out of cardboard. Lay on the ground, fill with marker and move to the next mark. Laid the stencil end to end for the touchdown markers.
2 50# bags of athletic field marker. We will use the stencil to touch up when needed.
Tom