Airport Access Denied?

GARY BOGGS wrote:
What I am looking for is a list of public airports where gliders and
power traffic coexist, and descriptions of how the gliders are staged
and moved around. I also think it?s time to get the AOPA involved.
All help is greatly appreciated.

I fly out of KFRR, an untowered airport with one 3000' runway. Power
traffic ranges from nonexistent to maybe a 30-40 on a busy day. We have
our occasional disagreements with the management but overall we get on
pretty well.

Generally we assemble gliders stored in the hangars around midfield,
although sometimes we assemble on the ramp next to the FBO building. As
long as we stay clear of taxiways nobody has any problems with this. We
use the tow car on taxiways only when pulling a glider or when it's the
only path; for normal operations the tow car is able to access the
mid-field turnoff and hangars by way of an access road, so that our
taxiway use is mostly one way.

(An aside: it boggles the mind that anyone could think it's safer to pull
a glider on the ground with a tow plane rather than with a car. The car
has better directional control, can actually hear the wing walker, and has
no Spinning Object of Death up front.)

At the ramp the row of parking spaces closest to the taxiway/runway is de
facto ours. When it fills up (rare, but happens on good days when all the
private glider owners show up but haven't launched yet) we park the
overflow on the taxiway side of the grass area between the taxiway and the
runway.

We of course try to minimize the number of people past the hold line but
it's not uncommon to have several when pushing out a loaded glider, and
have an extra hand stick around for a bit to help with the rope and get
the pilot settled in.

We do our best to minimize time on the runway where it doesn't compromise
safety. When possible, the pilot is loaded before staging. We do our best
not to cause go-arounds and always make radio calls before occupying the
runway, just in case somebody doesn't see the 60-foot cross sitting on the
numbers.

The grass area between the taxiway and runway on the east end of the
airport is a usable landing area. In addition to using it to save nose
skids, for training, or for fun, it's also handy for playing well with
power traffic to avoid making them go around while we're landing.

We've had some scuffles with the airport management and with other pilots
but nothing too bad. They've resulted in a few rules which appear to have
no point other than appeasing people, but they don't impact our operations
too much. Particularly not compared with the craziness which prompted your
post.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software