Private airport or small field for landout?

On Mon, 25 May 2020 17:01:29 -0700, MNLou wrote:

I use Google Earth to confirm private strips in my database whenever
possible.

I do exactly the same - its an easy and quick way to look over fields you
have the lat/lon for and decide whether its worth going to look at the
field.

You can zoom right in too, making it easy to use the ruler tool to
measure runway lengths and widths to +/- 3ft and to see what type of
surface the field has. Some Microlite strips are even narrower than light
aircraft strips.

Other suggestions:

- avoid landing in fields containing animals, both to avoid annoying
the farmer and because even a sheep or goat bolting across in front of
a landing glider could spoil your day

- a field with three straight edges and one meandering, possibly lush
edge probably slopes toward the meandering edge (could be a stream)
and you don't want to be landing along or toward the stream if there's
much slope on the field

- if a field changes colour along a straight line without an visible
fence line, bewa electric fence, which can take your head off if
you hit it.

- if a power line crosses a field you're more likely to see tufts of
grass round the poles than to line itself


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org