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Abandoned & Little Used Airfields
KiranWolf writes "I ran across this page doing some research on a local historical landmark. It has detailed histories and photos of more than 500 abandoned and little used airfields throughout the U.S., many of them dating back to the heyday of aviation. It's rather amazing how many small unknown airfields dot the landscape."
I can't say that there's much to talk about here... (First Post! *laugh*)
But in my hometown of Galesburg, Michigan, there is a city park that is also a combination landing strip. It's never actually been used.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Please report to camp X-Ray for de-briefing.
as potential autocross locations.
/.ers, throw out ideas on what to do with these things.
I ran across this page doing some research on a local historical landmark. It has detailed histories and photos of more than 500 abandoned and little used giant Air Bases throughout the U.S., many of them dating back to the heyday of the cold war. It's rather amazing how many giant and unknown Air Bases dot the landscape."
After you lose your job and get kicked out of your home/apt you can move to an abandoned airfield and live in a little shanty like the old Hoovervilles back in the depression era.
I'm printing out all the local maps right now. Thanks slashdot!!!
All the best,
--Bob
My favorite is Big Beaver Airport in Michigan. I kid you not - Big Beaver is Exit 69 on Interstate 75.
could one of these airfields be where my luggage ended up?
Just wondering...
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
We have quite a few here in Britian but they're nearly all World War II.
So why does the US have so many? Having a quick look they seem mostly military.
A blog I run for the wealth
Abandoned air strips are great places for concerts, fairs, cult worship ceremonies, and other gatherings.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I've done a lot of flying all over southwest Arizona, and there are a ton of little airfields out there, many of them in a 3-runway triangle configuration, that apparently used to be used for military training. I've seen a bunch of them that had been turned into little neighborhoods. In a way it reminds me of those post-apocalypse movies where people make primitive use of old abandoned technology.
Evil is the money of root.
Take a look at the amount of abandoned train tracks throughout america, it's extremely sad.
Back on topic. The one group that does know of the existance of all of these small little airfields is the DEA. With a small prop engine plane able to land nearly anywhere that's fairly long and flat it makes it virtually impossible to make any attempt to stop these planes from landing and dropping their loot.
With the infrared technology (nightvision) and other GPS devices these planes can fly in the dead of night during a new moon phase with no lights on and still relatively safely land and takeoff. So yes, these are not forgotten air strips, but there are some that wished they were.
Even more unrelated, where the hell do you get gas. Seeing as I've never flown a plane and definantelly not the lawnmower with wings kind. How does one go about getting gas? Do you just really fill up the tank, or in a pinch can you throw some standard disel in there? Always bugged me because I've never seen a plane gas station before, seen them for cars and boats, just never planes.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
How do people who are... say... interested in things like Drag Racing get access to such air strips (preferrably legally)?
Airfields like this would be a great way to keep people who are just interested in racing recreationally (and who dont want to go to the track), off public streets.
Perfect for street/dragracing (402meter).
If they are paved, that is.
Other uses could be for rc cars/planes/whatever.
English is not my first language, so cut me some slack -: Om du kan lasa det har sa kan du Svenska
The east and especially the south coast of Britain has possibly the highest concentration of disused airfields anywhere, dating back from the war. Fields in the south east were to ensure a wide spread of fighter cover, and airfields further north in counties such as Lincolnshire and Essex were bomber bases.
Many of these have dissappeared completely; some remain as private airfields, while others are converted for other purposes such as racetracks.
"Cattle Prods solve most of life's little problems."
This poor guy's tripod bandwidth meter is going to shoot through the roof... can't say I envy him.
Deffinately do not put diesel in your plane, unless you happen to be flying a WWII era Mescerschmitt (designed to run on deisel because more refined fuels were scarce). The reason you never see a plane gas station (though they do exist), is because fuel is usually delivered via fuel truck; a commercial vehicle with a big tank, pump, and hoses attached.
wait...
In Soviet Russia, you do not get airplane gas,
the avgas gets you!
(always wanted to do that one)
Anyhow, there are various grades of aviation fuel, everything from kerosine and derivatives that the jets burn to 110 octane Low Lead, 100 octane, and avgas (essentially what you put in your car). The fuels are injected with color-coded dyes do you can check to see if you've got the right gas in your plane. 110LL (the most comon variety for small prop planes) is blue. If you mix another fuel type in with it, the dyes are designed to combine chemically, and the fuel becomes clear.
As much as I'd love to own my own airstrip (I've been a licensed pilot longer than I've been licensed to drive a car), it's a regulatory nightmare to get one operating. Even as just a private strip, you've got everything from zoning commisions to public noise ordinances to deal with (in the U.S. anyhow).
Need a simple, easy to use data tier generator? http://www.gryphinsoftware.com/
all of these smaller or little used fields are in the faa maps. we use them as alternate sites in case of emergency (engine failure, running out of gas, etc.)
you might not know them but i am very familiar with all of them on the routes i usually fly!
Why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box?
Ive always been suprised at how many airfields dot the KS landscape! I know there are 3-4 just outside the Wichita City Limits.
A ir fields_KS_W.htm
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/KS/
That talks about Hutch airport. Airplanes still fly out of there and a lot of richy-rich types fly the short drive to Hutch to do antique shopping and shit like that up there.
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The information isn't cheap to come by because it is updated so often and used by so few, but a lot of smaller airports are public knowledge. Private pilots know where to get it. But really, all a small Cessna needs to take off or land is about 1/2 mile of relatively flat terrain. If conditions were right an experienced pilot could land on a well-mowed field or dirt road. But most established airports with attended hangars & other services are listed on charts e.g. the ones from Jeppesen.
And the reason nobody ever sees aviation fuel pumps is because you're never at little airports like this. Even small planes fly much faster than cars can travel, so they're not always closely spaced, but believe me, they're everywhere. Probably at least one to a county (in the midwest.)
"There is no night so forlorn, no mood so bleak, that it cannot be infused with pleasure by tender meat..." - R.W. Apple
I have a lovely abandoned air strip out on my farm in northern Indiana.
My uncles and family friends used it for about 50 years, starting in 1938, but people built a paved one not too far from town. So everybody stwitched. I think, around this little town, there were 6 or 7 air fields. Most are being cultivated, but I think ours and my great uncle's can still function, reflectors and all.
Frank used to (I don't know if he still is able) give flights over the gorge and Fayetteville for $5 (hence he was known as Five-Dollar-Frank), for $7 he'd take you up the river to Thurmond. A rare treasure to be seized while it's available.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Get an old car and park it on the runway, then get a large number of used bowling balls. Take turns trying to hit the car!
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
near where the planes park. Just like they do for cars really. If you don't go where the plane's park, you won't see a gas station for them.
I mean, really, it would be pretty silly to have a plane gas station at the mall, wouldn't it? So they put them back behind the hangers at *airports.*
If you're talking light prop driven planes, yes, you just put gas in them. No you do *not* put diesel in them because they aren't diesel motors.
For a small jet you *could* just put diesel in there, like if the feds were bearing down on you and that's all you had, but you wouldn't be happy about it.
You want to see a plane gas station? It's as easy as going to the local small airport and asking.
KFG
I was surprised that they did not mention the airstrip at Disney World in Florida, adjacent to the approach road to the Magic Kingdom. Perhaps because it is no longer recognized by the FAA, and is instead being used for bus staging.
According to this page, Imagineers built grooves into the runway which would cause aircraft axles to rattle off "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah" upon take-off or landing.
Here's my token plug for Canada ...
An abandoned airfield at Gimli, Manitoba, saved the lives of dozens of passengers in 1986, when a brand new Air Canada 767 on a flight from Ottawa to Edmonton glided to an emergency landing after running out of fuel in mid-air. The 767 calculated fuel in metric units, unlike most older aircraft, which confused the flight crew and resulted in an inadequate fuel load.
Ironically, the crew that Air Canada sent to recover the aircraft got lost on their way to Gimli and ended up running out of gas.
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In my many years of travels working as a flight crewman for a well known commercial airship company, I spent many many days in those massive blimp hangars.
They are truly national landmarks, and are breathtaking to see. Both inside and out, they are unbelievable. As the page says, they are the largest wooden structures in the world.
While I was there, MCAS Tustin was still operational, but there were talks of destroying at least one of the hangars. The other was to become either a museum or something else.
Now that The base has been officially closed, friends from the area said that those plans have been scrapped, and both hangars will be destroyed.
This is truly a shame, since these hangars have such history in them. Also, they are tremendously usefull for the current airship industry. Sometimes, the airship has to be hangared, and you can't exactly stuff one into a normal sized hangar. There aren't too many hangars this big left in the US, and it would be a terrible shame to destroy them.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
I broke into a rarely-used airstrip on Xmas day and spent the morning churning around in my Mazda RX-7 - so they do have a great use for crazy stunts in your car away from the roads :)
(as long as they're "paved", not grass!)
> Chaz
My son plays paintball at a facility operated on an disused never-paved air field. I've only ever seen the place from one end of what used to be a landing strip but there could be more to it. I assumed that it was used only for crop dusters.
The paintball shop is operated out of the old hanger.
It's about 30-miles east of Austin, Texas, in the middle of nowhere.
--Richard
If you're into abandoned airstrips, you should try trainspotting.
Now that's some truly exciting shit!
OK, I know it's off-topic kinda, but we have some cool abadoned Tube Stations[demon.co.uk] in London.
The tube (London's underground rail system) network is the largest in the world and there are a lot of old tube stations that were abandoned due to improvments to existing stations and changes in the organisation of the lines. They are all mainly closed off, though you can still see some above ground.
Perhaps a little more spooky than abandoned airfields mainly because they have never been redeveloped. Some still have the old advertising in them from the 40's/50's.
Just something I thought some people might find interesting...
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Most are private use only .. only other reason are for emergency landing purposes.
.. not even paved or gravel. So unless you REALLY need to land I wouldn't recommend using them.
.. It's still listed on the relevent maps, even though the southern end of it has been made into a mini-indy racetrack.
Also, the definition of a airfield is pretty loose. A lot of them are just large fields
Only one I've payed any attention to was the one at Disney World
Take a look at the amount of abandoned train tracks throughout america, it's extremely sad.
In high school a friend and I thought it would be fun to get a map of train tracks and then build a kind of hand-car that we could mount our bikes on and use pedal power for locomotion. We figured we could go farther and faster on the rails due to their relatively straight and flat paths and the decreased rolling resistance. It'd probably be safer than riding on rural highways.
I'm pretty sure it would have been a big problem if we would have been caught riding something like this without authoriztion on *active* train tracks, even though I don't think it'd be much of a safety risk, although crossing a long bridge might still be a little iffy.
It would have been a lot of fun, especially since trains often take paths different from roadways and you'd get to see scenery from a different persective. The light weight and bicycle nature of it would have meant we could have yanked it off the tracks and camped at night or ridden into towns for supplies, etc.
See, planes can share a strip with autosports......
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
The funny part is.. there's not much traffic going to the site right now, either. Slashdotted!
site is tripoded !
someone with a nostalgika towards old airfields give this guy some real webspace plz.
stuff that shatters...
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
Wow...maybe you can get a consortium together to buy a fiew old airfields, some of ICBM silos and some hardened microwave tower bunkers and you could start up your own small military.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
I was hunting on some property a friend of mine owns and here in the middle of this field is a tattered old wind sock and a broken down hanger. I checked an old USGS map and there it was, some old airfield.
A much different experience was seeing the massive B-29 airfields on the island of Guam. I suppose they have been turned into tourist hotels and streets by now.
"It's rather amazing how many small unknown airfields dot the landscape."
I don't know what this has to do with news for nerds or stuff that actually matters, but for that matter, it's intereting how many small still-known and still-used airfields dot the landscape. I live in Tampa, Fl. We have a private airfield that actually crosses I-75 (Major north-sounth route through central florida), we have a private airfield by the bay, one 15 minutes away in plant city (pop. about 20k), another about 35-40 min. in lakeland, not even to mention Tampa Itn'l Airport, St. Pete airport 20 min west of TIA, Sarasota Int'l airport about 1.5hrs south. They're just everywhere. It's crazy.
I did have a little look around this site before it was slashdotted. Quite interesting with plenty of satellite / aerial views of airfields. Includes a number of airfields which are only visible as silhouettes (where the tarmac has been long removed). Interestingly you can see many airfields of bomber-command in silhouette when flying over Lincolnshire in the UK.
Why oh why does slashdot post frontpage links to websites at tripod.com?? - its painfully obvious that tripod only allocates a pitiful ammount of bandwidth and this page is now unlikely to be reachable for a couple of weeks (until the story is well into the slashdot archives) The Unspoken warning to aviators here: Proceed which extreme caution when attempting to land at any unprepared field. Some of these fields have been out of service for many years and a combination of debris and weathering may have rendered the strip EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
Always make a low-pass when possible (avoiding disturbance to settlements) to inspect the strip and remember when you do land, there may be no services within reasonable distance; emergency or otherwise.
ALWAYS make sure you have either filed a flightplan or let someone know where you are going and when to expect contact from you.
Once again: Be very careful.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
And then there's the US Interstate highways with mandated straight stretches to allow landing planes, but that hardly counts.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Some years ago a friend and I were flying out to Wendover airfield in Utah for a weekend of drinking and blackjack at the casinos there. (Hey, we were 21 at the time and had nothing else better to do with our time that weekend). Wendover field was where the crews for the planes that dropped the first atomic bomb trained (and believe it or not, some of the craters of the big conventional bombs have filled in with hot spring water making decent winter scuba destinations). At any rate, we were flying west and getting ready for the routine radio call announcing our intentions to land and flight path (Wendover does not have a tower), when we get this radio message saying "Wendover flight control" telling us not to deviate from our current flight path and to announce our intentions and destination. We do and they give us explicit instructions on which runway to land on and NOT to deviate from those instructions.
We got to Wendover and as we flew over, there was a tremendous amount of military activity with F-16's parked on the tarmac and one of the runways, a couple of CH-53's and armed troops all over the place. We taxied up, tied the plane down and proceeded to walk back to the "pilots lounge" to close our flight plan when we were stopped by a private who demonstrated convincingly he was locked and loaded. I eventually calmed him down by asking for his superior officer to get his ass out there and to lower his weapon when one of the F-16 pilots came out apologizing and explaining things were a little tense after his plane and another lost engine power forcing his wingman to eject over the test range. He managed to bring his plane to Wendover and was the F-16 parked on one of the runways with the hole blown in the top half of the fuselage.
Weird. We were allowed to go on our way, and came back to the Wendover airport the next day to fly home only to find everyone gone. Our plane was the only thing on the tarmac and we never did hear what happened other than there was an F-16 lost over the west desert.
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I was always wondering about this. The history is quite interesting and thorough. It's located in Idaho. It's where they developed the nuclear jet engine.
Sadly, the website has exceeded it's alloted slashdotting (it's tripod), but it's worth going back for the read.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I think we just ran over that page. :^)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
How many of them are unknown to you and me, but well known to the cartels from south of the border? What is the percentage that have actually been used as a drug tranfer station?
I used to serve in a US base in Germany that was once home to a fighter squadron (Christiansen Barracks). The main runway was converted into the main road trunk.
After the Army left, the Germans finally sold the barracks. Now there's no trace of its former military background, just the unusually straight (for Germany) main road in the new suburb called Bindlacher Berg near Bayreuth.
You could come to Sweden on vacation and go on the Inlandsbanan ("the inland railway") for an old fashioned railway experience. Beside several options for travelling a long way with old trains, there are places where you can rent/borrow a trolley and safely go long ways. There are about one train per day on these tracks.
I have not done this myself, but there is plenty of information on the Internet about it. Of course, you may have wanted this on a different continent...
Reality or nothing.
and there is virtually no more places you can find 100/130 leaded avgas for sale anymore... you can special-order it in 55 gallon drums from some specialty fuels distributor in California and is used mostly only by air racers anymore. You can also get the 115/145 leaded avgas (colored rich dark purple) this way, but it cost about $25-30 per gallon.
100LL (blue color) is a misnomer, because it's lead level is not very "low" at all. It has up to 2 grams per gallon of tetraethyl lead. 80/87 only has a max of 0.5 grams pre gallon of TEL. 80/87 leaded "regular" avgas has almost disappeared from the market, forcing many pilots who need the lower octane, truly low lead fuel to have to buy unleaded auto fuel and mix it in about a 3:1 ratio with 100LL. With so many auto gasoline suppliers now contaminating their gas with ethanol (which means a significant amount of water getting in the gas too due to hygroscopic nature of ethanol), pilots cannot use auto fuel in many parts of the country because at altitude, the temperature drops and the ethanol/water will freeze in the fuel lines resulting in engine stoppage.... not good.
Hopefully soon, the new 82 octane unleaded avgas (colored light purple) will be put into production and available thru distribution channels soon.
There also are programs to develop a pure ethanol aviation fuel (E-85) but that requires both the aircraft and engines to be specifically engineered to keep the fuel systems sealed from the atmosphere (to keep water vapor out), keep fuel system pressurized with dry nitrogen, and possibly also keep it heated too. Of course ethanol has much lower calories of useful energy in it per mass, so useful load and range of these aircraft are greatly reduced.
...which has an active, bustling little general-aviation airport--unlike the abandoned one in nearby Canton, MA--make it quite clear that in the late years of the Roaring Twenties, the local developers had Big Plans for the town. They were very proud of the airport; it was one of the things that was going to put Norwood on the map. The crash of 1929 modified a lot of those plans.
I suspect that a lot of little airfields may have started in the same way--when aviation was new, and land was plentiful and cheap--perhaps a lot of towns put them in hoping to get in on the ground floor.
Of course, there's an amazing amount of abandoned STUFF all over the place. Every place has its "lost cities" and ghost towns. Road systems for developments that were never built, military installations that were abandoned, etc. etc. It's just that anything abandoned rapidly becomes invisible--names vanish even from the topographic map, and unless you investigate on the ground or are curious about aerial photos, how are you ever going to know they are there?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Intersections are 5 letter designations...
on the VOR DME 36L the initial approach fix is the DISNY intersection; there is also a "GOOFY four arrival" and a "MINEE three arrival."
on departures to the north, the first intersection you'll cross is GUANO
...all your abandoned airfield are belong to us!
at airnav.com you can browse by state, search by city, etc...
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to follow that Lost Rivers link. If I'm not back in a while, don't bother. Gollum!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
In the US, we call them railbikes. A friend of mine makes a conversion kit.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
From the comments I am surprised at how few people here fly small planes. There are over 9000 airstrips in the US and over 100,000 small planes. If you don't understand about flying just start with the AOPA website (aircraft owners and pilots association).
The small strips need to stay as small strips so people can get around via aircraft. Once they are gone, they never come back.
Speaking of roads that cross airfields... one of the main drags in the San Fernando Valley goes under a stretch of airport. Right above the mouth of the tunnel, there's often parked a midsize jet, with its tail hanging over the street. One day some wag left a pile of filled brown plastic garbage bags right underneath it. Wish I'd had a camera with me. :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
http://www.aopa.org
AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association)lobbies to keep airports open and keep down the cost of flying.
Flying is a lot of fun. If you like flight simulators, you can try the real thing for about $50 at almost any small airport.
Was waiting for someone to mention abandoned tube stations, they interest me.
:p
Call me sad
Aw crud. You'd think I would get that right. Sorry.
Mooney Guy N4074H
Wonder if all these are left around by the government as decoys incase we are ever bombed.
Obviously, this doesn't fix the embedded pictures in the webpage, but it allows you to read the text and check out the links:
Google Cache
A few years ago, some friends of my parents bought at auction what came to be known as the "Coke Plantation" west of Sumter, SC. It was auctioned off after its owner, one Robert E. Lee, proprietor of Robert E. Lee Chrysler/Dodge, was caught in one of the largest cocaine busts in American history as he attempted to fly in to the private landing strip on the grounds of his plantation and, upon seeing the legion of law enforcement officials waiting for him at his home, proceeded to the Sumter Municipal Airport to land his plane which contained something like a ton of cocaine.
Smrt guy. Anyway, while we were telling stories about airstrips in the middle of nowhere...
Trev
But I'm sure the Gary Airport is there somewhere.
With so many auto gasoline suppliers now contaminating their gas with ethanol (which means a significant amount of water getting in the gas too due to hygroscopic nature of ethanol), pilots cannot use auto fuel in many parts of the country because at altitude, the temperature drops and the ethanol/water will freeze in the fuel lines resulting in engine stoppage.... not good.
Yeah, but it made great fuel for high performance automobiles without catalytic converters. For instance, I used to (when it was legal) go out to the airport or to a little station on the west side and fill up the tank of my supercharged Studebaker with good smelling blue/purple avgas which took care of the detonation issues that occaisionally cropped up at higher boost on hot summer days.
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Here's a site promoting General Aviation with a map of public and private airports (click on the link near the bottom to see the map). According to the map, there are 5,400 public-use airports in the U.S. compared to 12,945 private airports. (And only 30 airports handle 70% of airline traffic.) Pretty interesting site for information about light planes.
There also are programs to develop a pure ethanol aviation fuel (E-85) but that requires both the aircraft and engines to be specifically engineered to keep the fuel systems sealed from the atmosphere (to keep water vapor out), keep fuel system pressurized with dry nitrogen, and possibly also keep it heated too. Of course ethanol has much lower calories of useful energy in it per mass, so useful load and range of these aircraft are greatly reduced
Should also mention that E-85 engines need to be fuel-injected, not carbureted. Even miniscule amounts of water in ethanol will rapidly form carburetor ice that carb heat will fight a losing battle against. No matter how hard you try, you cannot keep all water out of the ethanol. It's always an azeotrope, ya know. There's no such thing as true anhydrous ethanol except for maybe a few microseconds after you run it thru the molecular sieve.
"It's rather amazing how many small unknown airfields dot the landscape." "
not really, when you consider the limited range of early aircraft.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We use Manzanar Airstrip once a year. It's an abandoned airstrip across the highway from the abandoned WWII internment camp.
The idea: instead of having big planes(727 and such) connecting to big cities(chicago) and then take another plane to the city you want to go, why not get a smaller plane and connect directly to the city you want. There are suppose to be these great benefits to it.
er, no. unless you're referring to something like the me262, but that was never in significant production and was gas turbine. gas turbines can use diesel or kerosene.
the only piston engine aviation diesels as far as i'm aware have been either research models or on airships. the higher strength necessary to cope with compression ignition [diesel] is borderline power/weight ratio for a/c, and most aviation diesels proposed were for cruise power, not takeoff where gasoline engines were used.
Actually, a bunch of people give a flying fuck. In fact, so do you, otherwise why post? Why indeed? Is it because you have a need to type tough? Is it because you are unloved, and were not touched as a child? Is it because you simply hate your pitiful, sad, empty existence? Is it because you are a big dick? A fucking pathetic parent's basement dwelling fuck? A boorish simpleton? Bully? Fuckface? Twit?
But it started even before that. Airplane manufacture is so heavily regulated that if you want to buy a small private airplane, it will be equipped with technology from the '60s! Why is this? Because the FAA will not approve any modern designs for regular (i.e., non-experimental) use. Sometimes government regulation is good, but in this case it has pretty much entirely foreclosed competition and innovation for personal airplanes.
^^ All of the above. Just to piss you off!!!!111
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Where do you think all of those black helicopters are coming from?
If you happen to live next to one of these "abandoned" strips - Watch Out! You never know when you might abducted by Zionist alien grays and flown northward - forced to toil for evermore in mind-control drug fields of the hollow world under the harsh light of the inner sun.
Here's the most recent Wayback Machine cache of the story page. 2 years old, but better than nothing since the main page is slashdotted.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
No, actually it's just the USA that's that fucked up. When are you guys going to get your heads out of your lawyers asses?
in College Park Airport is one of the small airports that is in trouble. The general aviation rule changes put in place since September 11th have made it difficult for them to maitain anything resembling normal operations. The airport, established in 1909 by Orville and Wilbur Wright may have to close
Here are some other sites to look at along the same theme as the abandoned airfields site...
http://www.nelsap.org - New England Lost Ski Areas Project
http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/History.html - has a page about "lost" ski areas in Colorado
http://www.forgotten-ny.com - good site for the lost treasures that are hidden around in the urban decay of New York
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
You didn't say where your grandfather lives, but in Alaska, aircraft have the right of way over cars on the highway. It isn't inherently stupid to land on a road, as long as it is relatively clear of hazards (power poles, dividers, etc.)
However, I wouldn't land on a busy freeway unless I had a red-hot emergency.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
I have been told by a retired Airforce serviceman that Interstate highways are used for emergency runways. As I have been told, after a certain stretch of an Interstate highway it is required that there be a 1 or 1.5 mile straightaway. The person who told me said the strips can be used by the military for emergency purposes. I am not sure how long the stretch is in between straightaways. I have not researched this, so please don't take my word to be 100% true. Although I have no reason to believe my source would have lied to me about it, it was a "matter of fact" comment when discussing roadways. If I think about the 4 hour drive I take to my parents house, all on I-95, I do recall a lot of short straightaways, but I could be wrong. Has anyone else heard about this? Is it true? Urban ledgend? FYI, he told me this before 9/11 so attribute this to a crazy military person ready for war.
the medivac helicopters know where these airfields are.
I used to work for a 3d company on that street, and lemme tell you, it was hard to tell clients where we were located ("just get off on Big Beaver exit 69"). Yeah. Thankfully I don't work there anymore. ;)
It's an urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp
Of course, since interstate highways are federal property, I don't suppose there's anything stopping the government from shutting down those portions of the roads that are straight and free of obstructions to use as airstrips in an emergency. But there is no such thing as the "one-mile-in-five" law your friend mentioned.
DennyK
You know, the black helicopters, the jets spraying the sky with poison chemicals, maybe even UFOs...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
1) I grew up right near Big Beaver Road
2) My wife went to Ball State
3) We're about to have our 3rd baby in 13 months...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Don't forget to point out that many American industrialists openly admired the NAZIs! (At least at the start...)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Mmm. Don't know about the US, but there are several straight sections in highways in South Korea designed to be used as landing strips.
As seen here
But yes you are righ, infact they could be easily converted to real race tracs.
If you want to race, there are oragnizations that you can join, get a racing license and race. A former coleague of mine races RX-7's this way..
One of these, near the Wisconsin/Illinois border on I-94 was named after Richard Bong, a WW2 ace. The site was abandoned before the construction was complete and now it's a state park used by people who want a wide flat space for outdoor activities like snowmobiling, horse riding, and so on.
Along the Interstate Highway nearby there were signs declaring "Bong Recreational Area, next right", which I'm sure led to a few confused cases here and there. (I think the've since re-phrased the signs so it doesn't look so bad.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I find it hard to believe that "liter" would be written on any fuel sheet in Canada, since Canadians are generally smart enough to know it is spelled "litre".
Between Perth (capital of Western Australia) and Adelaide (Capital of South Australia) is the "Nullabor Plain" (Nullabor is indigenous for "treeless" - which is an apt description.) .
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Straight is another good adjective to describe this road. In fact the road from Caiguna to Balladonia is Australia's longest dead straight section of sealed road - 146.6 kilometres
Watching for planes whilst travelling is important for two reasons:
1)Aerial Speed checks (Police time you between markers painted on the road)
2) The Royal Flying Doctor Service uses the road as an emergency landing strip, because despite being treeless, there are still plenty of rocks.
This trucker has a photo of a warning sign regarding aircraft landing:
http://www.dragnet.com.au/~rhomer/page7
The planes do not land any where on the road, but on the marked 'strips' (marked by the sign) and the planes will overfly before landing.
Here is a guide to making the trip to Perth from Melbourne (approx 3500 km)if you're into sitting in a car for at least 3 days straight!!
http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/~awatkins/nu
I remember reading that the Eisenhower Highway System was designed so that 1 mile in 5 was straight with the idea that it could be used as a landing strip in case of emergency. I'm sure many of these abandoned airstrips in the middle of the forest in the middle of nowhere serve the same purpose.
In Queensland there are several drag racing clubs, and tracks. They range from pumped up WRXs, to top fuel cars, etc. The cost is reasonable (most of it is to cover insurance) with discounts to members.
But then again the Queensland Police sponser a drag event on the Gold Coast, with entrants able to race against a street legal modified car owned by the police (as well as regular pursuit cars). Lessons are available on safety (saftey checks are strict on the day), and techniques.
Note the Gold Coast event is intended to get street races onto a track and as such the cost is very reasonable. (Limited to street legal cars, occasionally the Department of Transport is there to check cars and issue defects. Unless dangerous defects do not attract a fine unless its a repeat,)
Maybe our state is unusual in this regard.
How the heck are you supposed to find them with only two digits (hundredths) of a degree precision?
3rd baby in 13 months?
Sorry buddy, but with a nine month human gestation period, I call BS
An abandoned airfield is about as likely as an abandoned road. As a pilot with an inexpensive bush plane I fight to keep airports open so that I can actually use them. The sad fact of the matter is that even with large increases in population, standards of living, and technology, aviation continues to become relatively more expensive and there are many fewer airports today than there were even fifty years ago... and the number continues to shrink. It isn't that no one wants to take off and land on them. To the contrary it is because most people don't fly in general aviation aircraft and know next to nothing about aviation, so a single developer, politician, or nearby resident often wields enough power to misinform and negatively influence an entire community.
Most people don't realize what a rare freedom general aviation flight is and has been in this country. Almost no one I speak with seems to realize how much their community benefits from small airports (consider things like medical, business travel, express shipping, newspapers, cleared checks, etc.) or how tragic and irreversible the death of an airport is. This is why it is critical that anyone interested in aviation try to involve others in the community, even when it means shelling money out of your own pocket to give first timers free flights and talk with them about aviation! I do it all the time.
Even though it's within most people's grasp, there are far fewer than a million pilots in the United States and probably half of those are professionals. Most folks are lucky if they know anyone who is a rated pilot. For about seven grand or so and about 75 hours of flight time you can obtain a private pilot rating which is good as long as you comply with the law and are medically fit to fly. We need more private pilots to defend our airports and our right to fly, not to mention just to share the freedom and beauty of that third dimension.
There is a state park in Burlington, WI on the list too... Major Richard (aka Dick) Bong state park in WI. Named after the top scoring WWII Ace from the US, Major Dick Bong.
The best part of it is that a huge Grateful Dead Reunion was held nearby this past summer. How many hippies do you think were trying to get a camping spot in the Bong Recreation Area?
Oh no... the real cost is MUCH higher than that...
:)
Once you've wiped the s**t eating grin off your face, you're hooked! It's like the first hit of a really good drug; and this sort of "getting high" is legal!!
In all honesty, flying for real is like a revelation after flying flight-sims... these days I fly some great sims (X-Plane and FS2002), but I still find them severely lacking when it comes to the truly visceral experience of being 5000 feet above your home town keeping your eyes peeled for flocks of geese. Now that's something sims are lacking right there...
115/145 used in warbirds
The investigation into the fire that destroyed Tillamook's other hangar showed that it was arson. They never found out who did it.
My personal theory is that they know good and well who did it -- and it was someone who was too politically connected to indict.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs;
a process that traditionally requires some debugging.
-- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service
conversion to a new computer system.
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