EuropaBoy wrote:
Getting hold of the landowner details for suitable parcels of land identified seems to be a bit of a hurdle. Most of the farming around my area seems to be by tenant farmers who at best are reticent about telling me who their ‘landlord’ is . . .
That is a major problem. I spent a great deal of time looking into opportunity to create our own field. Most farmers I met, either thought we were super rich, in which case piss off, or that we were some sort of joke, and did not get it 
They get so many subsidies for the land, even subsidised for it not doing anything, that to lease it out, or consider a commercial option to an interested party, is not worth the bother. Drainage, access, maintenance, neighbours, the list is endless. Buy a large house, with flat acreage, seemed to be the way, but with kids going to school, who wants the daily commute from nowhere, to civilisation.
In the end….forgot about it, and parked the planes at the local airfield….
The quality of the average grass strip in the UK is amazing. They always seem to face into the prevailing wind, are well drained and have great approaches. I always admire the many strips as I fly over them, and you could often see 3-4 for every 1 that is marked on the charts. People do seem to put the effort in.
I wrote this in another ancient thread:
[discussion regarding getting accepted at an established farm strip]
I looked at this when starting flying, c. 2001. I tried to contact a few places, and was basically told to f. off; no new members wanted. You had to be “in” for some time, and knowing the grandfather of the owner was perhaps a help. You have more chances of setting up a water-ski school at the local fishing club lake than to get into some strips. I can see why; if I was operating under the UK 28-day rule and keeping a tractor in my “hangar” so that there is no, ahem, “change of use”, I might be doing the same. Probably no windsock because they encourage visitors, and practice forced landings from nearby schools (I used to do these during PPL training, not realising they were probably p1ssing off the owner). The name of the game is to survive 10 years of neighbours’ curtain twitching and even after that most don’t apply for the lawful use statement because they don’t want to rock the boat.
I heard a similar story from an UL owner more recently – he was told to get lost because it was a group of 4 (“too much flying”).
Then you have severely limited mission capability. The UK countryside is so broken up from decades of farming that there are loads of ~400m fields but very very few ~800m fields. A friend of mine (400m garden) has solved this with a C182 with canards (N-reg only)…
Later I looked at doing it myself, and advertised (overtly, for a runway, 750mx20m) in Farmers Weekly. Got several leads, the best of which was 750m, with 60ft trees at each end, and a 1.4% slope to the east, so one would take off downwind unless the wind was more than about 7kt. OK for a TB20 if going light… The farmer was very keen to diversify (many are) but it would not have worked. OK for a C182, etc.
I think a lot of farmers are interested, and of course many won’t be. You have to offer them a package. Offer them what you would pay for parking at your local airfield… no good looking for a cheap deal. You are doing this for a secure base, not to save money. Land which sold after about 1970 will be in the Land Registry, in the UK. Before that, there is no clear way to find the owner but the locals usually know.
It’s a big project. I was banking on spending say 50k on draining the runway, maybe another 50k on repairing a derelict barn next to it.
I had the privilege of operating out of a private strip, owned by a member of the British aristocracy. The facility was superb, totally beautiful, and he built two hangers, one for him, one for the rest of us. We had great fun, but every month, a letter would arrive stating that the local NIMBY crew were counting the movements. Counting the days, of operation, with copies of letters they would send to the local council.
Given my friends position, the council would ignore, largely, but he got a lot of hastle, lot of negative comment within the community, despite the fact that he owned most of it 
After his death, the strip still exists, is operational, but no PPR. Few can get in.
The ones that were left, fell out. making the whole affair a damp squib.
There is another strip I go to occasionally now, but it has a 12 foot dip at one end of the runway. Makes your flare a bit exciting……..
There is another airfield for sale, according to my favourite newspaper: You can buy Kattleberg near Gothenburg for a mere 20 million SEK (around 2.1 million EUR):
http://m2.nu/kopa/gard/784295/kattleberg-airport-258
Two AN-2 can also be purchased. The owner doesn’t want to sell to just anyone, but to an aviation enthusiast who shares his vision about running it as a private airfield.
If anyone from EuroGA does buy it, please invite us over for a fly-in for the inauguration party. ;)
Interesting.
A similar setup (a grass strip and a house) has been for sale here, near Slinfold, Sussex, UK, for about the same money. AFAIK it took a very long time to sell.
That one is a 700m hard runway though.
I understand the paved part is only 440 metres though. Still, despite being a long way from Gotenburg, it might still be the closest GA accessible place to Gotenburg city. Some local pilot from Gotenburg might pick it up, base his aircraft there and place a couple of cheap cars there for visiting pilots. However, I can’t read swedish enough to check whether there are any major flying restrictions on the place.
It says that only your phantasy limits what you can do with the place: “det är bara fantasin som sätter gränserna för vad du kan göra här”.
Peter wrote:
A similar setup (a grass strip and a house) has been for sale here, near Slinfold, Sussex, UK, for about the same money. AFAIK it took a very long time to sell.
I was the hangar rat at Slinfold for several years and got a lot of great flying experiences out of there. It’s true it was on the market for a long time, and several offers fell through. At one point a wealthy Qatari apparently wanted to buy it, throw all the aircraft out the hangars and use them for his vintage car collection instead.
