In article ,
Dylan Smith wrote:
Kids can't wander onto an airport, at least not my home base. I have to
drive through a manned security gate and present ID.

For each airfield like that there are 100 you can just wander up to.

While I think that ratio might be a bit off (I'd put it at more like
10-20 "free love" airfields versus 1 "armed camp" airfield), it's been
my experience that the airfields you can walk up to are ghost towns
that are grim, depressing places. I'm not saying that vibrant
airfields of yesteryear don't exist (I've encountered a few
counter-examples myself), but they sure do seem to be rare. What's
more common is the broken-down, one horse airport who's runway is only
home to few tumbleweeds. Not exactly the sort of places to encourage
young aviators.

--Ken