Peter wrote:
I don’t really know why; I imagine it is because most of their flights are short, to the next club mainly, or just in circles back to where they departed.
If you fly straight and level for 3 hours doing 70 kts instead of 250 kts, whats’s the difference? They are both straight and level for 3 hours. What’s near in a TP is a day’s journey in a Cub, thus far away. Besides, a loop and a few rolls beats 3 hours straight and level any day 
Grass is more versatile and better/more forgiving for a broader range of aircraft. Having both is even better of course, and some airfields have both.
Timothy wrote:
Also, if GA all ends up on strips and the little airfields get closed, leaving only the bigs ones, we end up with yet more separation between the camps.In the US, yes they have wonderful strips, but they also have GA access to almost all major airports.
IME separation between camps (to the degree that is an issue) is mostly in the head of a very few persons. Persons aren’t that terribly interested to fly for the sake of flying in any case, but are constantly looking for an “earthly” reason to fly, an excuse. It has little to do with external factors. Two of my microlight instructing colleges are both airline pilots for a living for instance. People have to actively move between “camps”, do different things. Then we all see that there are no real “camps”. The spirit of aviation looks exactly the same everywhere, and it has several different expressions.
“they are getting massive bills because so much needs doing (one syndicate C150 used to get £8000+ Annuals)”
We’ve repaired and recovered our Jodel DR1050 wing, paying someone to do the work, for less than our last Annual before leaving Certified for Permit. Including cost to transport the one-piece wing.
Actually, the plane is quite nice (certainly not trashed) and it’s the only Cherokee I’ve ever been in where the controls aren’t full of slop.
I don’t know about the TBM story at Andreas, I’ve not heard that one. The only person I’ve ever heard of who wanted to resurface the airfield died shortly afterwards after shutting down the wrong engine in a twin during an EFATO.
I don’t think re-classifying airfields to brownfield status from a planning standpoint has helped things.
I looked fairly seriously into buying a former 2nd war airfield (disused) with the view to create a useful GA airfield with an on site small business park. I had been led to believe that the runway was in reasonable condition. I got as far as preliminary discussions and an on site inspection and discovered the runway was far far worse than expected.
It should be reasonable for GA to mix in at most airfields without a colossal amount of difficulty.
For the price of their annual, I can get an annual and buy a brand new certified ADS-B transponder and insure the plane and have some change left over.
Guessing the sort of figures you may be talking about, it looks like they are the fairly standard syndicate case where
So it’s not really a fair comparison because if you owned the same plane yourself and did most/all of the work yourself, or with a friendly freelance A&P/IA, you would
This is like one of the countless homebuilt v. certified threads. The same given plane needs more or less the same stuff done to it. The real issue is the [mis]management of the “ground situation”, together with some revenue maintenance attitudes in the Part M sphere. When some real-life figures are thrown up, they always point back to this same old stuff.
If I could move my TB20 to US Experimental or Annex 2 (now Annex 1) or whatever, there would be no significant cost saving.
The only way that Cherokee group can afford to keep flying is to base at Andreas and park outdoors.
Isn’t it the case that the farmer who owns Andreas doesn’t want any GA expansion, and when one TBM owner and prospective tenant offered to pay for resurfacing the (absolutely dreadful condition) runway, he refused the offer?
Also farm strips are problematic. In most countries you can’t just set one up at all legally, in some not without bribing politicians, in the UK you have the 28 day system which is what most grass strips operate under but they can’t allow open visitation… This is not the long term solution… we have to safeguard the existing infrastructure, and it may mean dipping into our pockets.
Back to the original topic, take say Wellesbourne. I reckon the owner of the jet which used to park there could have just bought the whole place. The problem, as Alioth says above, is that he would not have got a return on the investment. I have seen that repeated elsewhere… Now, if I had the cash to spare, I would just buy the place. Then I would have to deal with tenants who range from a load of nice people to a load of bickering ungrateful people, and get slagged off on forums
our aviation careers are probably safe, so it’s just another problem that our generation is leaving our kids
Yes, exactly. I can fly the TB20 for the rest of my actuarial life expectancy.
RobertL18C wrote:
That trend is established in the USA, arguably the GA world mecca, hence growth in demand for utility type fixed gear aircraft.
I have flown once from an unpaved surface in my US flying, and doubt I will find opportunity to do it again. The local government just paved the runway at that airport. You have to go out of your way to find unpaved airfields – some love to do so and more power to them but it’s just a recreational trend, done for fun.
Catalina Airport near Los Angeles is private (on a small, privately owned island) and just came up with an innovative way to get their runway replaced after many years – they negotiated with the Marine Corps to do the work for free, as training, if the material is supplied. The Marine Corps doesn’t get a lot of opportunity to practice building island airports, as an expeditionary force.
Peter wrote:
as people strive for ever cheaper and cheaper and cheaper flying
I don’t think people are striving for cheaper and cheaper flying; at least in the UK, the increase in the cost of flying (at least in the certified scene) has been exceeding the increase in income for some time. Middle class people are being forced out of certified aviation due to the costs outstripping their ability to continue to pay. I was talking to one of the owners of a Cherokee 180 on the field – their annual for an aircraft of the same complexity as mine (fixed gear, fixed pitch prop, carburetted Lycoming engine) is five times higher than mine. For the price of their annual, I can get an annual and buy a brand new certified ADS-B transponder and insure the plane and have some change left over.
There probably once was a time – maybe 20 years ago – when getting an annual on that Cherokee wasn’t all that much more expensive than getting an annual on mine.
It’s not that owning my plane is cheap (it isn’t), it’s that owning a certified type has become absurdly expensive. (I will admit in my case being on an island doesn’t help keep costs down). The only way that Cherokee group can afford to keep flying is to base at Andreas and park outdoors.
as people strive for ever cheaper and cheaper and cheaper flying
A nice C185 is around $300k the same price as a new Carbon Cub.
The C185 has a 1700 lb useful load, and 750 nm IFR range at 145 KTAS.
Peter wrote:
It is really frustrating to see this happening.
Yeah, but on the bright side, our aviation careers are probably safe, so it’s just another problem that our generation is leaving our kids.
Also, if GA all ends up on strips and the little airfields get closed, leaving only the bigs ones, we end up with yet more separation between the camps.
Yes indeed, and a lot of people based on strips are calling for that: the disintegration of the “hard runway” infrastructure, via the boycotts of anywhere charging over 10 quid or whatever. This crowd dominates the UK sites… I don’t know about other countries’ national forums.
It is also the de facto position already in some mainland countries that have a significant “club level” scene – that scene operates mostly from grass, avoiding the hard runway airports. I don’t really know why; I imagine it is because most of their flights are short, to the next club mainly, or just in circles back to where they departed.
The problem with all this is that you then get a gradual collapse, as people strive for ever cheaper and cheaper and cheaper flying, if possible on the back of somebody else paying for it. The collapse then quite suddenly accelerates, at a certain point, when the critical mass (probably not enough people wanting to refill the petrol tank in the lawn mower) is reached. If the place stocks fuel (avgas or mogas) it will happen a lot sooner.
It is really frustrating to see this happening.
