"bush flying" in the suburbs?

Go for it. It's not as uncommon as you might think. I live in
Oklahoma City and a couple of guys around here have Super Cubs or
Maules that they go goof around in. Within a very short flight most
cities there are vast areas of undeveloped land you can land a bush
plane on. Here we have two rivers with beautiful smooth sand bars,
several motor vehicle recreation areas and myriad fields.

A couple of years ago we had a guy in a Maule land in a field to drop
his son off at baseball practice at one of our high schools. The local
news station sent a truck out to cover the "crash." I think someone
called the fire department and they came out to watch him take back off
again. It's been a few years, but I think one of the news stations
interviewed the local police department who confirmed that there is
nothing illegal about landing an airplane in a field (duh).

However, check your local laws, most states have some rules about using
public roads as your own personal airstrip.

I landed in a field once to stop and talk to a land owner. We plopped
down next to his pickup truck and chatted for a while. Not really as
big a deal as you might think.


wrote:
Among other aircraft I've been looking at the Zenith Air STOL CH 801
lately, which attracted my attention purely as an inexpensive and
eaily
built plane to cart my family around. http://www.zenithair.com

But the advertised 390-ft fully-loaded ground roll got me fantasizing
about all the convenient places I could land with a STOL bush plane.
Somebody give me a reality check -- even in relatively densely
populated suburbs, there are a number of large open fields suitable
for
a bush plane. As it happens there is one such within walking
distance
of my parents' house in the northern D.C. suburbs, and there are
other
flattish largish open spaces near other places I visit. Has anybody
on
these newsgroups had any luck convincing random private landowners to
let them land on their unimproved property? Anybody even tried? Are
there likely to be local ordinances prohibiting intentional
off-airport
landings in the suburbs? Lets just leave aside for the moment the
pesky little question of whether I'm qualified for this kind of
adventuring...

wrote:


However, check your local laws, most states have some rules about using
public roads as your own personal airstrip.

Yep, here in Montana it is legal to land on roads. See this months
AOPA, page 62 for what happens when you don't do it right.

That's how flying ought to be. It shouldn't be any more complicated than a
drive in the country or taking a tractor out on the field.

Shawn
wrote in message
ups.com...
Go for it. It's not as uncommon as you might think. I live in
Oklahoma City and a couple of guys around here have Super Cubs or
Maules that they go goof around in. Within a very short flight most
cities there are vast areas of undeveloped land you can land a bush
plane on. Here we have two rivers with beautiful smooth sand bars,
several motor vehicle recreation areas and myriad fields.

A couple of years ago we had a guy in a Maule land in a field to drop
his son off at baseball practice at one of our high schools. The local
news station sent a truck out to cover the "crash." I think someone
called the fire department and they came out to watch him take back off
again. It's been a few years, but I think one of the news stations
interviewed the local police department who confirmed that there is
nothing illegal about landing an airplane in a field (duh).

However, check your local laws, most states have some rules about using
public roads as your own personal airstrip.

I landed in a field once to stop and talk to a land owner. We plopped
down next to his pickup truck and chatted for a while. Not really as
big a deal as you might think.


wrote:
Among other aircraft I've been looking at the Zenith Air STOL CH 801
lately, which attracted my attention purely as an inexpensive and
eaily
built plane to cart my family around. http://www.zenithair.com

But the advertised 390-ft fully-loaded ground roll got me fantasizing
about all the convenient places I could land with a STOL bush plane.
Somebody give me a reality check -- even in relatively densely
populated suburbs, there are a number of large open fields suitable
for
a bush plane. As it happens there is one such within walking
distance
of my parents' house in the northern D.C. suburbs, and there are
other
flattish largish open spaces near other places I visit. Has anybody
on
these newsgroups had any luck convincing random private landowners to
let them land on their unimproved property? Anybody even tried? Are
there likely to be local ordinances prohibiting intentional
off-airport
landings in the suburbs? Lets just leave aside for the moment the
pesky little question of whether I'm qualified for this kind of
adventuring...

writes:

However, check your local laws, most states have some rules about using
public roads as your own personal airstrip.

I've not succeeded at getting this information from my state (Indiana).
AOPA has been less than useless on the topic. They shut down discussion
of the legalities and just berate me for even thinking about landing a
plane anywhere other than at a declared airport.

I need to take it up with the county. I keep forgetting when I'm with
the Sheriff...

--kyler

On 7 Dec 2004 05:28:01 -0800, wrote:

However, check your local laws, most states have some rules about using
public roads as your own personal airstrip.

Some few years ago I was heli-skiing out of Valemount BC. This was
before the operator built a lodge; he was using a commercial motel.
The Huey parked overnight in a circle out front.

I flew up to Valemount in the back of a Piper Cub (J-4 or J-5, can't
rememer which). The local "FBO" came out to fuel it from a 55 gallon
drum in the back of a pickup. However long the airstrip was, it wasn't
long enough for the next plane to bring a client in. That was a
private twin of some sort.

So the Mounties closed off the highway in front of the Valemount
Motel. The plane landed and taxied into the motel parking lot. The
Mounties behaved as if this were all in the day's work.

Presumably the couple took off again the same way. They were from
Texas, and the girlfriend wore dark glasses and a shawl like Jackie
Onassis.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
the blog www.danford.net