The key to this will be airfields near enough to passenger / pilot’s ultimate destination to make such a trip worthwhile.
If you like surfing in Cornwall and live in Sheffield, then hiring a small aircraft for the trip is a great idea. Newquay has an airport and, of course, ………. oh, they shut Sheffield didn’t they.
From the recent UK Government Red Tape Challenge Report
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….action and change and in particular by making the sector more accessible and affordable. Crucial to this will be:
●● Reducing cost
●● Reducing regulation to an evidence based and proportionate level
●● Securing the availability of and access to airspace for GA
●● Securing a network of airfields which provide access for GA
So where is this network going to come from? HM Government are not going to mandate £5 landing fees at Manchester or Luton for Cessna 152’s so alternative airfields are needed.
There are some small airfields but some will only suit a Ryanair operation – a destination miles from anywhere. Would I use Kenble to visit Bristol? No, it would be easier to take a long drive to Bristol.
I think we need a network of grass airfields near to towns and cities to allow suitable GA aircraft alternatives to large “International” airports. It is a big ask.
The cost and planning regulations are against anything remotely commercial on a farm field (fine for a farmer operating his own aircraft but anything not agricultural is so difficult to set up).
But, if you could set up a grass airstrip, why not have a GPS approach and pilot controlled lighting?
I think we need a network of grass airfields near to towns and cities to allow suitable GA aircraft alternatives to large “International” airports. It is a big ask.
I think we need tarmac in the UK for all weather options. Difficulty is you will never get back the airfields lost so where do we find the new Sheffield airport?
One needs tarmac or reinforced mole-drained grass.
Straight grass is no good for general use. Even taildraggers can’t fly from properly waterlogged grass. Maybe a Maule can. But usually the airfield owner closes it, to prevent damage.
Unfortunately even if you have a grass field, you won’t find enough people willing to dig into their pockets to secure all-year use, by reinforcing it. So rough fields usually stay rough no matter how much the based pilots complain.
This is why the existing hard runway GA facilities must be supported, and why I get so p1ssed off to see the continual (to give one example) Shoreham Airport assasination squad at work on one UK aviation “chat site”. The whingers and moaners will prob99 happily spend the price difference on a taxi (or booze, or fags, etc) in a non aviation context.
The only alternative is for a bunch of well funded owners to sort out a farm strip somewhere, reinforce it covertly etc, and keep it exclusive for their own use which is the only way to avoid getting busted for exceeding (in the UK) the 28-day rule. The moment you open it up to general traffic, you can forget it. But this option will still kill off at least 90-95% of GA activity because most won’t have the required money (and many rent, etc).
The only clear way forward is to change the classification of airfield land to be different from property land. Then one could set up an airfield from nothing, with full planning permission, without it getting into trouble via concerns that it will become an industrial estate. I recall speaking to a DfT official about this at one conference (face to face) and he said they will change the regs to make this possible. Nothing happened. Unfortunately, an airfield cannot be maintained in a good condition unless there is some commercial property income too….
