What resources do you use to find or research potential backcountry landing sites, and do you have any tips to share on how to use them effectively?

I’ll start the ball rolling by mentioning BLM’s GeoCommunicator site, which I haven’t seen in any threads yet. It’s an excellent map resource to determine if a location is on BLM land and--just as important--whether it has a special designation (possibly meaning they don’t want you to land there). It provides a choice of basemaps including satellite imagery and topographic. There are selectable overlays that show areas administered by BLM, and whether they are designated as a National Conservation Area, National Monument, or Wilderness Area.

GeoCommunicator can be found at http://www.geocommunicator.gov/blmMap/Map.jsp . To set it up, select Site Mapper in the Select Map pulldown at the upper right. In the section below that, click to uncheck the Reference folder checkbox. Next, click to check the Surface Management Agency checkbox, expand it by clicking on the folder icon and then check all the checkboxes inside the folder. Under the Base Maps folder pick either Topo or Imagery. Finally, either click-and-drag to pan to a location, then zoom using mouse wheel or the slider at bottom right. Or click on the Lat/Long button at the top and enter coordinates.

BLM also has an application that runs inside Google Earth, called PLSS. It seems like a great idea, but it seems to have a bug, so the overlay doesn’t register correctly, causing the depicted BLM land boundaries to sometimes be off by miles, depending on your zoom level and how well centered the location of interest is. For more info see http://www.metzgerwillard.us/plss/plss.html .

Just word of mouth and it ain't very reliable either

Every time I try to research something backcountry related on Google the first several options to pop up are backcountrypilot.org with info and a thread on the topic! We have become quite the resource!

Clippwagon

I have some old topo maps which show a lot of old airstrips. Also bought Delorme Topo 9 program. It has old topo maps for the complete US and lets you search for runways. I pull the lat/long and look at them on GoogleEarth to see if the lat/long still looks like an airport is there. If so, it goes in my gps for the next scouting adventure. I get about a 60% hit rate on them and have found a lot of great places to camp.

I prefer to find them near a river, stream or lake, as I enjoy the fishing aspect of this activity as well.

I'm in AZ for the next few months, and Delorme has pinpointed 14 bc airstrips within 25 miles. I went to look at them this week, and 9 of them were usable.

I have also had good luck with the state pilot assn's. Generally there is a member who has our interests and is willing to share their knowledge.

Feel free to PM me with ?? about using Delorme Topo Maps. It is easy once you figure it out, but not too intuitive.

Rich

Don't forget our very own http://www.shortfield.com/. Like Chris has said in the past. If you have a new airstrip to add, let him know.

Shortfield.com, for sure. Chris added a few strips for me recently, and I've posted PIREPS. Also http://www.utahbackcountrypilots.org has a VERY extensive database of Utah backcountry airstrips, and it allows you to export KMZ files that load into Google Earth as placemarks. Well worth joining.

Another resource is Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: http://www.airfields-freeman.com . Most of them are gone, but some are still usable.

Rich -

Just like you, I've spent many rainy weekend hours happily pouring over old topos and cross-referencing GE and GeoCommunicator. Well, maybe yours weren't that rainy, being in AZ.

I just remembered another resource, a compilation of all the old Army Air Corps strips, in KMZ format:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.p ... 9&page=all
It's organized by state--I believe all 50 or 48--and there were lots in AZ.

Noe Flightrisk wrote:I just remembered another resource, a compilation of all the old Army Air Corps strips, in KMZ format:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.p ... 9&page=all
It's organized by state--I believe all 50 or 48--and there were lots in AZ.

Good find. A little trivia:

Keyhole was the technology acquired (or licensed?) by Google, otherwise known as Google Earth. Hence the .kmz/.kml format... Keyhole markup language zipped. It's an XML spec meant for the Keyhole viewer application.

don't pay any attention to Zane,,, nobody here understands anything he says anyway...