Live in air parks in warm areas

B

bumblebee

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Oct 30, 2012
Messages
2
Location
Grass Valley
Display Name
Display name:
Bumblebee
Hello everyone, I saw the post about building an airstrip in Mexico earlier in a couple years ago, and I would like to follow up on that if anybody has any further information. We’re getting to that point where we’re gonna want to retire and be able to keep, our aircraft in our house.
 
What's the question?
You want to move to Mexico or you want to know where the live in airparks are in warm areas on the globe?
 
There are 70 or more airparks in Florida. Huge aviation community, lots of fly-ins, restaurants. Late fall to mid-spring is nearly perfect weather every day, and summer mornings are fantastic.
 
FL and TX seem to be full of them.

In Mexico? I’d be concerned about safety if operating your own strip. Also, local authorities shutting it down on a whim…
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Hijack- it would be cool if there was an aviation air b-n-b app. Airpark homes that you could rent for a weekend, week, or months.
Click to expand...
A lot of the bylaws of the HOA prohibited rentals, but I’ve only read a few.
 
Our airpark doesn't have any AirBNBs right on the field but there are some within walking distance. Our HOA is wrestling with what to do if one of the owners decides to try this.
 
I have built one gravel 25x2800 airstrip. It is not registered with the FAA. Depending on what kind of land you start with, it can be relatively easy, or a massive job. Big boulders are a killer, and require blasting. I was not prepared to blast. Mine was on 22Ac of fairly flat scrub. I also maintain a turf airport. The starting point is the same for gravel or turf, but once it's cleared, and graded, you need to seed, and water of course.

My gravel airstrip is in S NM. I have a road grader, a tractor with several attachments. Clear it with a brush hog first. Use a Harley rake if there's a lot of scrub(I had to remove a lot of low scrub) then grade it with the grader. , then a 3pt tine rake to make mounds of scrub. Burn it off, then use the tine rake to move rocks to the sides of the runway. Grade again from the edges in toward the center to give about a 1.5-2deg crown. Flat grade if it's going to be turf.

It's not complicated work but plan to spend a few weeks on a tractor and grader, and have the attachments needed rather than rent. Blade, box blade, Harley rake, tine/rock rake, brush hog. If you have bigger scrub, you might need a scarifier.

You could hire me to do it, but I'm not cheap.:thumbsup:
 
There was an aviation type airbnb at Airventure 2024. Will try to find the name of the company. All looked good, except they required each property owner to provide a personal vehicle, along with the airpark/airport property. Someone asked if it would be possible to ask aviation renters to use an Uber (or similar) to catch a ride to the nearest rental car company. And they said “no, the vehicle has to be at the property, and immediately available for the renters after they land”. At that point it was time to walk away. Most, if not all, auto insurance companies will not allow vehicle owners to be in the “rental car business”.
 
wsquare said:
… All looked good, except they required each property owner to provide a personal vehicle, along with the airpark/airport property. …
Click to expand...
I looked at a ‘hangar club’ a few weeks ago. Hangar’s a couple blocks from the beach, big enough to fit a TBM, 2 bedroom + kitchen/living, with a golf cart that’s allowed on the city street.

Buy in was cheap, but rates were $450/night. For three nights/month, I could own something similar.
 
ateamer said:
There are 70 or more airparks in Florida.
Click to expand...

Yes but they're all full. Florida is way over its 2024 quota and well into the 2025 quota already. We're petitioning the governor to build a wall along the FL-GA line.
 
bumblebee said:
Hello everyone, I saw the post about building an airstrip in Mexico earlier in a couple years ago, and I would like to follow up on that if anybody has any further information. We’re getting to that point where we’re gonna want to retire and be able to keep, our aircraft in our house.
Click to expand...
Hey there, I moved to the US earlier this year, but lived in Mexico for a while. Fly-in communities might be non-existent in Mexico. The percentage of people that can afford aviating is lower than the US and the percentage of the people that can afford it and also decide to fly is also lower. So it's hard to get enough density of demand to justify a fly-in community.

Some of this is because of the war on drugs and the misguided belief that closing down smaller strips would reduce drug movement. Predictably, it didn't, but it did reduce the fun of GA aviation because there was a reduction in places to fly. I have a friend, for example, that has had a strip since the 70's when his Dad built it. He's in a really beautiful area in the mountains, but only logs 30-40 hours a year because the aviation picture there is really about going places, not about doing thousand peso hamburger runs on weekends.

This one has been proposed and slowly trying to get developed for over a decade. https://www.taema.mx/about-taema/taema-airpark

We tried to do something in Guanajuato, but the combination of bureaucratic hurdles and complex land purchases eventually made us give up.

There has been a group at Oshkosh the last couple years trying to sell lots at a proposed development, but I'm not aware of them getting much accomplished.

Some friends of mine near Leon got as far as putting a couple strips in their giant property, but couldn't get any further. I made a video about that trip almost a decade ago talking about how they would soon have an airpark. I've stopped asking about it because it seemed to make them sad to keep giving disappointing updates.

So, the advice remains as it has ever been. Find an airport near where you might want to settle down (Ajijic and the Aeroclub Chapala or Valle de Bravo and Aerodromo Valle de Bravo might be good options) and live nearby, but not actually with, your airplane.
 
Last edited:
Half Fast said:
Yes but they're all full. Florida is way over its 2024 quota and well into the 2025 quota already. We're petitioning the governor to build a wall along the FL-GA line.
Click to expand...
No kidding! Our airpark is eight or 10 miles outside the city, but in 10 years or less will be surrounded by it. The county and cities are more than happy to rezone ag land for zero lot line tract housing, and they’re building like crazy. A 9,000 house development was just approved a few miles south of us - accessed by a two-lane road. It’ll be a major impact on another airpark that’s basically going to directly border it. Only a matter of time until a bunch of dweebs move in from New York high rises and start whining about things that have been going on (flying, shooting, airboating, dirt biking) since before they were born.
 
Half Fast said:
Yes but they're all full. Florida is way over its 2024 quota and well into the 2025 quota already. We're petitioning the governor to build a wall along the FL-GA line.
Click to expand...
Great idea. I assume it will be a soundproof wall and also on the Georgia side of where the band of that name is from.
 
Zeldman said:
What is your definition of warm area.??
Click to expand...
The real question is whether it has to be warm 12 months of the year or if it can trend to unbearably hot for 6 months. If the latter, then Arizona or Florida works well, depending on how much humidity your lungs and skin will tolerate. If the former, though, good luck.
 
Half Fast said:
Yes but they're all full. Florida is way over its 2024 quota and well into the 2025 quota already. We're petitioning the governor to build a wall along the FL-GA line.
Click to expand...

Good thing we come from the west when we visit :) Plus, we fly and walls can’t really stop us haha.
 
Half Fast said:
Well, the Westerners aren’t quite the problem that the damnyankee carpetbaggers from the nawth are.
Click to expand...
You Southerners only like him because he burned down the White House.
 
Florida air parks are a good spot to test my pilot relief tube. So if you see a mooney flying overhead, don’t look up!
 
Half Fast said:
Well, the Westerners aren’t quite the problem that the damnyankee carpetbaggers from the nawth are.
Click to expand...

I’m from the north, moved to the central south (Texas) and come to visit from there now. I noticed Floridians are now much more welcoming if I speak with a fake Texas twang and say “I’m from Dallas, y’all.” Instead of in a stuck up manner “I’m from Caaanada, eh.”
 
ateamer said:
There are 70 or more airparks in Florida. Huge aviation community, lots of fly-ins, restaurants. Late fall to mid-spring is nearly perfect weather every day, and summer mornings are fantastic.
Click to expand...
But... You're in Florida. Hurricanes, daily thunderstorms in some seasons, tons of training traffic, year round turbulence, and horribly understaffed/overworked ATC. And you've only got one direction to fly domestically.

For (mainly) those reasons, I'd be looking to TX instead of FL.
flyingron said:
Our airpark doesn't have any AirBNBs right on the field but there are some within walking distance. Our HOA is wrestling with what to do if one of the owners decides to try this.
Click to expand...
I hope you allow it. I think being able to do an AirBNB airpark situation in the right location would be fantastic, and pilots are generally better people than the average Joe. Make the owners responsible for the actions of their renters, but I hope you don't prohibit it.
Zeldman said:
What is your definition of warm area.??
Click to expand...
This is important. If it has to be south Florida or south Texas or Arizona you'll find a lot of places that are probably full already. If you can go to some of the less-popular places like Arkansas, you might find more options.

I did take pics of a bunch of posted airparks at Oshkosh this year, I'll have to go back and look. I likely skipped anything in California or Florida though.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I hope you allow it. I think being able to do an AirBNB airpark situation in the right location would be fantastic, and pilots are generally better people than the average Joe. Make the owners responsible for the actions of their renters, but I hope you don't prohibit it.
Click to expand...
No way to restrict it to pilots and VRBO and AirBNB nearby have been ripe with problems.
 
flyingron said:
No way to restrict it to pilots and VRBO and AirBNB nearby have been ripe with problems.
Click to expand...
What if you charge $10K a night with a discount for pilots?

Seems silly for non-pilots/enthusiasts to get an AirBNB at an airport, but I guess some AirBNBers are going to go for "unique".
 
eman1200 said:
Florida air parks are a good spot to test my pilot relief tube. So if you see a mooney flying overhead, don’t look up!
Click to expand...
How is anyone gonna see an overhead flying Mooney if they don’t look up? By then it would be too…….oh, I’m foldin’ what yer takin’ out the dryer
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Hijack- it would be cool if there was an aviation air b-n-b app. Airpark homes that you could rent for a weekend, week, or months.
Click to expand...
I know of a guy that rents a room or two in his airpark home in Tampa but he has some planes and you'd have to park in the grass.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
What if you charge $10K a night with a discount for pilots?

Seems silly for non-pilots/enthusiasts to get an AirBNB at an airport, but I guess some AirBNBers are going to go for "unique".
Click to expand...
Our airport is within 200' of the largest lake inside of North Carolina. It might work if your airport was in the middle of nowhere. Ours isn't.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If it has to be south Florida or south Texas or Arizona you'll find a lot of places that are probably full already. If you can go to some of the less-popular places like Arkansas, you might find more options.
Click to expand...
Fly New Mexico. Buy a few thousand acres, build your own airpark.

I can pretty much guarantee you will find an area where you won't have neighbors living close by that will complain...
 
The Sandy Creek Airpark near Panama City, FL seems to always have inventory. If not homes at least lots are always available and dirt cheap. Not sure if Panama City, FL is “warm” enough for you but that’s where we usually spend our winters and can’t complain. Most days are in the 60s in the winter months.
 
Water is so over rated. My well is 750 feet deep. Cool, clear and best tasting water in the county. It isn't even filtered.

Also, no surface water equals no mosquitoes...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top