Slashdot Mirror
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/
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."
Most airports have a plane "gas station". Often, a fuel truck is used (the airport operator will drive the truck to your plane, and pump the fuel in) and sometimes there are self-serve credit card fuel pumps, just like you use to fill your car up with. Go to any local general aviation airfield and you'll probably see this in action.
Most GA aircraft take 100LL (100 octane avgas), but many can run on unleaded fuel too.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
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!
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.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
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.
I certainly expected the DEA to know about these, especially near borders and the southern coastlines. Some of the airfields in my area (Tennessee) that were abandoned were cut up with deep trenches every 50 yards or so, with the dirt piled onto the runways. This far north the effect was not to prevent smuggling as much as to prevent drag racing.
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
eeing 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?
Most of the locally run airports will have pumps. Some self-serve with a credit card, some full service during the day. For those that don't, bring a hose... Most aircraft don't have locking gas caps. (duck)
Way back when I was learning how to fly, I pumped gas for a small FBO. They let me fly at cost, paid me a bit, and let me experience the glory of blue-juice engineering. Some n00b did just that - ran low on gas and ditched in a little used field because he did not do his math first. He called, I drove a fuel truck for a few hours and filled him up. As a side note, most of those little airports are marked on maps and a good GPS will have them as well. Well worth the cash to have a little box that will always give you a pointer to the nearest field when you have errata in the air.
Usually, the smaller non-turbine stuff will use 100LL, which is pretty close to normal high-octane gas. One might put in normal gasoline in a dire emergency, but running out of fuel and being stranded at an airport is not such a beastie. I suspect it would give you the same problems a Porsche running 95 octane unleaded - with a stalled engine being a serious matter on takeoff. I have a 1958 Stitts playboy with a Continental o200 engine. I could have set it up for normal gasoline, but 100LL is pretty easy to come by.
For the jets and other turbine-powered stuff, they use Jet A, which is essentially kerosene.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Slashdotted a tripod.com page -- doh!
Check here: google cache
Google's cache is one of my most favorite features on the 'net in a long time...
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
Thats how Dragracing started in the US.
About 70% of drag strips were airfields at one time, postwar the US govt sold a fair amount of theses "hop stops" as surplus.
Best way is to buy one, Drag Racing insurance for a strip is VERY expensive. And an owner letting you use it is pretty much nuts.
And no a waiver will NOT do, any owner that would allow this has to be half a noodle short of a pack of ramen.
Sad truth of litigation and life........................
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.
at airnav.com you can browse by state, search by city, etc...
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.
I guess I should have been more precise as to which point I considered a legend.
From http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp
--
Claim: The American interstate highway system was designed to be used for emergency airstrips in case of war.
Status: False.
Origins: Numerous folks swear Interstate highways in the United States must be designed so that one mile in every five is perfectly straight and flat. According to this whispered bit of facetious lore, if the U.S. ever comes under attack, those straight, flat stretches will be used as landing strips.
Richard Weingroff, information liaison specialist for the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Infrastructure and the FHA's unofficial historian, says the closest any of this came to touching base with reality was in 1944, when Congress briefly considered the possibility of including funding for emergency landing strips in the Federal Highway-Aid Act (the law that authorized designation of a "National System of Interstate Highways"). At no point was the idea kited of using highways or other roads to land planes on; the proposed landing strips would have been built alongside major highways, with the highways serving to handle ground transportation access to and from these strips. The proposal was quickly dropped, and no more was ever heard of it. (A few countries do use some of their roads as military air strips, however.)
Some references to the one-mile-in-five assertion claim it's part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. This piece of legislation committed the federal government to build what became the 42,800-mile Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, which makes it the logical item to cite concerning regulations about how the interstate highway system was to be laid out. The act did not, however, contain any "one-in-five" requirement, nor did it even suggest the use of stretches of the interstate system as emergency landing strips. The one-out-of-five rule was not part of any later legislation either.
--
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
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