Peter wrote:
And ultimately most people, even keen pilots, want to live somewhere nice, and useful in the usual ways, not just because there is a runway close.
You have two options.
Most people (by far) will chose the first. Siljan for instance, no one lives there permanently (maybe one or two max). So it’s more of an airfield with extended possibilities for lodging. What keeps it going is it’s a very much utilized airfield in the heart of one of Sweden’s busiest recreation areas for summer and winter holidays. It’s not a “real” airpark in the right sense of the world, but it is indeed a recipe for success. People fly there to get to Siljan (the area), and would do so regardless of the airpark.
I think the same applies more or less to the Verchocq airpark – which does not really meet Peter’s points: houses there are not too big and not super expensive – and the runway IS an essential asset. Only it is a bit distant from the nearest tourist attraction – the sea coast.
Peter wrote:
But even so almost nothing has been built…
You forgot to mention these wonderful structures here (houses?): (Spain is full of half-built skeletons like that) They obviously removed all building equipment which means there is little hope these things will ever be completed.
The problem with this airpark is that it is so far off that one needs an aeroplane to even get there.
Yes – I think the biggest problem with this one is what I said in post #9 i.e. the location. Most people with money want to live in a nice area, and a runway close to the house delivers very little additional utility to having one say 30 mins’ drive away.
A runway close to the house means you can fly, land and put the plane away in 30 minutes. That is a form of utility, especially if like a friend who lives with his plane you like to fly every morning, put the plane away and start your day. I also remember meeting one German part time resident at Spruce Creek who likes to fly his amphibian off to do some splash and goes in the morning. To each his own.
Flying is supposed to be FUN. Not everybody, and certainly not everybody who can and does buy airport property, flies purely for transport. Often people who live at the airport have two planes, one for early morning flights and the like, and another flown less often just for transport. My friend mentioned above actually has four, with two or three typically operational at any time. Other people like projects, or run small aviation businesses and are endlessly test flying their work… for FUN. I think there’s some blinkered thinking going on here.
Verchocq Airpark looks nice.
I saw one in Naples FL which was quite nice indeed. hard surface runway and about 40 homes with hangars. homes there sold for around 400k USD. It was pretty close to the downtown area, about 10 mins by car. I’d love to live there.
In Europe, it is simply the case that a huge opposition exists to just about every airstrip. Building them where they are useful brings up 20 citizen on patrol groups before even planning application and that is usually it. Ideally, these things would be built around old military runways but most of the time people will want those demolished or used as anything but an airport.
Silvaire wrote:
A runway close to the house means you can fly, land and put the plane away in 30 minutes.
This is more or less what it takes me to do that including driving home. And I don’t even live close the airport.
Silvaire wrote:
Flying is supposed to be FUN.
But the rest of your life is also supposed to be fun, to some degree, isn’t it? (BTW: For me I chose flying as work, I do other things for fun). And there is not much fun to be had living in that area of Spain in the pictures above. Between June and September it is going to be 45 degrees Celsius in the shade, only that there is no shade within 100km. The nearest beach is 30 minutes driving away. The nearest town with some culture (Barcelona probably) 3 hours driving. From where I live it takes less than that to get there, including driving to the airport, and all with a 59 Euro Germanwings ticket. 19 Euros if booked early.
And what use it is to have instant access to your plane, when the next restaurant, bakery or grocery store is half an hour away? We need one of these every day, but not many really fly every day…
And then the cost: These plots cost on average 200,000 Euros, the houses they propose another 600,000. Legal fees and other stuff will bring this up to a million (which is probably a lot more than the developers paid for the whole disused airfield…). For that, you can get a very nice property in a real nice part of Europe (not some desert in the middle of Spain) like Brittany or Cornwall or Hungary or Croatia or wherever you like – all within 15 minutes drive to the next airfield – and have money left for a nice aeroplane and fuel and maintenance money for 20 years. But of course to everybody his own.
Peter wrote:
Most people with money want to live in a nice area,
Correct. Which this part of Spain is not. Btw, there’s another unused airport right next to it, can’t recall the name, but it was built about 10 nm from the San Javier one. Seems they like their airports in Murcia…..
