Maybe we can put together a table of how much bribe you will have to pay out on average per country. 
Or you can start with Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and work from the bottom until you find a country where you would like to live. Hint: the first five are Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Sudan and South Sudan.
Sorry for this unhelpful tongue-in-cheek comment.
I talked to some people at Nottingham City Airport and Wellesbourne and they were all very pessimistic about the airfields being high interest areas for housing companies and eventually every strong local council may fall to promises of investors. Wouldn’t it be much more sensible to buy the airports back from those companies (and develope close-to-airfield aviator housing)? Now in times where money is cheap, this might have positive long term impact.
Almost impossible in Hungary, unless for agricultural use. You have to establish a full-fledged airport. What a shame.
Really? How have eg. the owners of Hertelendy Kastely managed to create their airstrip?
OT, does anybody know if the hotel is still open? Their website hasn’t been updated since the annual closure in autumn and I didn’t get any replies to emails in the past weeks.
Back on topic: In Austria it is difficult to impossible to get the required “Außenlandegenehmigung” (litterally “outside landing permission”) for fixed wing aircraft. However, there are exceptions like the former airfield of Leopoldsdorf (north of Vienna) from which an ag-flying company operates several Cessnas and Pipers. AFAIK, a are SIAI-Marchetti S.208 is also at home there. There are also some fields near Neusiedlersee that are used seasonally by the “Starfighters” (ultra-low-flying Cubs to scare away the birds from the vineyards).
Wouldn’t it be much more sensible to buy the airports back from those companies (and develope close-to-airfield aviator housing)? Now in times where money is cheap, this might have positive long term impact.
This is really a different topic (disappearing airfields) but the basic problem I see is that most people want a facility to be provided by someone else. So, a pilot with a new TBM ($4M+) and plenty of spare cash could secure himself an airfield for that. Will he? No. Quite likely he is a “banker” and will simply calculate there is no return on the capital, so to him it’s a useless proposition. I know of a number of such cases. Of course there is no return on capital. You are just buying security of tenure. All you should look for is that the income exceeds the running costs i.e. ground rent, business rates, wages, maintenance, etc. If one day you die and your (disinterested) successor gets an offer from one of the circling sharks, he/she will get the money back, easily.
Where I am based, a part of a nice big hangar has just been sold to a LAUNDRY! There were about 10 planes in there originally. The asking price was probably about £700k (I know someone who offered £500k and was turned down). One would think that getting 10 owners of nice planes to dig up 700k would not be that hard. Now, or soon, they are all likely to lose it, because the laundry is expanding. They already took over a hangar I nearly bought in 2005. Probably half of them will give up flying…
Back on topic… one issue in the UK which I found when I tried this some years ago is that most countryside land has been divided into ~400m pieces. If you can use this (e.g. a C182, or some other type with less or no distance capability and there are many) then you have loads of farmers who you can approach. In Sussex there are 82 farm strips, according to the police. These days, farmers are keen to diversify. But longer strips are rare. I found one 750m one, with a derelict building next to to it (useful!) and the farmer was really keen, but it had 60ft trees at both ends so extremely marginal for a TB20. Getting a permission to chop the trees would have been very hard given that a permission for the change of use would have been impossible. Under the 28 day rule you have to use the land as-is and maybe remove onstacles slowly, over time, but 60ft trees??
blueline wrote:
Really? How have eg. the owners of Hertelendy Kastely managed to create their airstrip?
That is a proper category IV airport, i.e. it needs proper prior planning by an authorised person, noise measurements, firefighting equipment and lots of paperwork (and money). You will also have to own quite a huge piece of land (considerably larger that the strip itself) and you must also do no agriculture there. Therefore it may very well have been feasible for them, but not for an average landowner, like my family, who owns a piece of agricultural land big enough to land a plane, but neighbours (mostly also agricultural users, but also a few houses) are too close to enable a proper noise abatement area and the owner would like to continue agricultural work compatible with the airstrip usage.
A category VI airport would not be that much a hassle, but only UL could use that, not a proper certified aircraft.
The relatively hassle-free option of registering a landing strip (categories A, B and C) is only open for agricultural use, for aerial work or in conjunction with some outdoor programme (in the latter case it can only be used on up to 10 days per year and you still have to justify that you need the aerial access).
OT, does anybody know if the hotel is still open? Their website hasn’t been updated since the annual closure in autumn and I didn’t get any replies to emails in the past weeks.
I called them now and could reach their manager. Except for a few weekends, they will not be open for individual reservations this season, only for group bookings for the whole building. He promised to e-mail me those dates when they plan to be open for individual reservations and I post them here.
blueline wrote:
Thank you very much for your efforts. If the hotel opens only for a few weekends, one can forget about it altogether, though.
I may still visit them if it is a nice weekend, but it is a shame that their occupancy level is this low.
Running a 5 star hotel in the middle of nowhere seemed to be quite daring to me from the beginning, as much as I liked their concept…
It is in fact quite common in Hungary. The countryside is dotted with 4-5-start (castle-stlye) hotels far away from everything. Almost all of them struggle, except for those that cater for the ultra-rich (i.e. at least 2-3 times the price of Hertelendy) or those that have a full wellness suite on site. Those closer to Budapest may attract enough company events to keep them floating, but they still may not welcome individual guests.
So what’s the deal in Spain, anyone know?
So what’s the deal in Spain, anyone know?
You could travel to Spain and do some research if you are serious.
I would start with the family of the guy I mentioned, and ask him how he did it. And maybe visit the Murcia Air Park project and speak to them face to face. They also sometimes go to Friedrichshafen. Also the lady who wrote that air park report should have contacts down there.
The deceased guy’s name was José Luis. Here are some pics of his airfield, from 2007-2008:
41º49’29"N 004º53’35"W (not checked).
The field was opened in September 1999, and the name was “EL CARRASCAL”.
Close to Valladolid.
Pretty cool. My dream :-)
Cortijo Grande
Here is an interesting airfield project in Spain close to Mojacar, I was there a few years ago and was told that sometimes the military land there, definately useable, just needs a bit of tidying up, old house, hangers and remains of flying club still there.
Was told that it was owned by a UK pilot at some time.
