Anyone live in a fly-in community?

JustinD

JustinD

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JustinD
So I’ve been house hunting recently and have been considering moving to a fly-in community and living with the plane.

That being said I’ve weighed my personal pro’s and cons on the situaion, but I was wondering if any of you do or ever have lived in a fly-in? What are your experencies and personal pros and cons of it?

Thanks!
 
I have some good friends in one. They love living there, but are concerned about the limited resale market when it's time to do so.

I have been trying to sell my house in a country club neighborhood for a year. Specialty properties -- especially in declining niches -- are a crapshoot.
 
I have owned a property in the neighborhood since 2005. We built a hangar/weekend place in 2009. We have been living here full time since July 2016. We just got CO on the full house yesterday.

As with any neighborhood, you need to check it out well. We have a great community here. The HOA limits themselves by charter to pretty much the common areas (the runway, the roads, and the community boat slips). While there are always personalities we have very few complete turkeys here. There are social events all the time. The biggest issue is that we have so many good people living here (compared to about three or four years ago), that it's getting hard to invite "everyone" to an event. Of course, that just leads to more parties with fewer people.

I chose the lot so I could put my hangar (which is attached) on the side of the house (the taxiway access is one side of my lot) so my living room, my music room, my office, and the "party deck" all look out over the runway. Even my master shower has two clear glass blocks atop the glass block window so I can see what's flying in the shower.
 
I'm coming up on 2 years now, and loving every minute of it. It's awesome to walk out to the hangar and shine up the plane, or jump in and go fly on a moments notice. And most of your neighbors are into aviation.
 
flyingron said:
I have owned a property in the neighborhood since 2005. We built a hangar/weekend place in 2009. We have been living here full time since July 2016. We just got CO on the full house yesterday.

As with any neighborhood, you need to check it out well. We have a great community here. The HOA limits themselves by charter to pretty much the common areas (the runway, the roads, and the community boat slips). While there are always personalities we have very few complete turkeys here. There are social events all the time. The biggest issue is that we have so many good people living here (compared to about three or four years ago), that it's getting hard to invite "everyone" to an event. Of course, that just leads to more parties with fewer people.

I chose the lot so I could put my hangar (which is attached) on the side of the house (the taxiway access is one side of my lot) so my living room, my music room, my office, and the "party deck" all look out over the runway. Even my master shower has two clear glass blocks atop the glass block window so I can see what's flying in the shower.
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I buzzed your field weekend before last. I may have concerned a lady walking her dog lol.
 
I have a bunch of airline buddies who live on airports in the ATL area. Majority enjoy living on an airport, but as with anywhere different personalities sometimes clash. But overall they all love it.
 
Grum.Man said:
I buzzed your field weekend before last. I may have concerned a lady walking her dog lol.
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If she was concerned, she wasn't a resident (we have a few not-in-the-airpark neighbors however who pass through). We love low passes here.

In the Questair? We saw that! Cool plane.
 
I'll echo much of what's already been said. We've lived in a fly-in neighborhood for 4 years and I love it. There are 16 residential lots and currently only three are occupied (and one of those doesn't fly any more), so airport operations are minimal. It's also a grass strip and unlighted so no night operations. Two more lots are currently under development, so it will get a little busier soon, but I'm confident I won't mind that a bit (more neighbors to talk flying with). Ditto to Salty's post - love walking out to my hangar and jumping in the plane. And when we get back home, just pull the plane into the hangar and we're home.
 
I forgot to mention another major perk for a larger community. Mine has about 60 houses, 50 with hangars. There are at least 10 A&P's and 3 IA's available. Finding at least one is trivial, and getting a few together for diagnosis of a tricky issue is not too difficult. Owner assisted annuals are the rule, not the exception.
 
Do your airparks have IAPs?
 
My best friend lives in a fly-in community south of Atlanta and he loves it. It is an active community and everyone is involved in aviation in some way.
I also have several friends in Spruce Creek, and they all love it too. Everyone of them says they delayed the purchase because it was relatively expensive, but when they saw the prices keep going up and the houses not staying on the market very long (even during the recession), they decided to take the plunge. They are all happy they did.

If my wife didn't love the house we have on the intra-coastal so much, I would buy there in a heartbeat.
 
We’ve been living on an airpark for (gasp) 22 years. It’s hard to imagine flying as much as we do if we didn’t live on one. It is rare for us to drive more than an hour to go anywhere.

We are on grass, with lights and fuel. The good news is that it is a really laid back place. Only 12 homes on the runway and only half of them fly. There are about 50 other planes that call it home and they pick up most of the maintenance tab. There are 40 other homes in the subdivision and most couldn’t care less about the Airport.

We built our modest little dream home, an oversized hangar and never looked back. We never had any intention of moving so resale is not an existential concern.

It’s a great lifestyle... it’s how we roll.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
A friend at the airline bought land and developed a fly-in community west of ATL. I think most of the occupants were from our airline and there were some great parties out there.
 
Thanks so much for everyone’s responses. Kinda the answer I expected! We’ll see how it goes from here.

Fortunately it’s just me so the ball is all my court, just need to decide now if it’s what’s right for me!
 
paflyer said:
Do your airparks have IAPs?
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No. My standard approach in low conditions is to fly the ILS into the airport 5 miles north of here. If I can break out even marginally VFR, I just turn left and head over to our field. Otherwise, I'll park there.
 
An airpark will be my next move. We looked at a couple in the Dallas area a couple of years back. Pecan Plantation and a couple of others. Really nice, really spendy (especially Pecan). In each case it would be WAY more house than we were looking for. We're going to keep looking, though. I don't see moving before I retire, but it's pretty much guaranteed we will then.
 
Salty said:
I forgot to mention another major perk for a larger community. Mine has about 60 houses, 50 with hangars. There are at least 10 A&P's and 3 IA's available. Finding at least one is trivial, and getting a few together for diagnosis of a tricky issue is not too difficult. Owner assisted annuals are the rule, not the exception.
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Name or ID FFR?
 
I'm not convinced I'd want to be in a community. HOAs are like garlic to vampires. I could see being just as happy to be 10-15 min max from an airport with a variety of approaches/runways and on-field services. Assuming a reasonably affordable hangar is available.
 
paflyer said:
Do your airparks have IAPs?
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Some do. In my vicinity, Lakeway Airpark (3R9) does have an IAP. Also, Lago Vista (RYW) has one too. It would seem that airparks with resident jets are more likely to have IAPs. The Mid-Valley Airpark (E98) worked for years now to establish at least a GPS approach and it wasn't done when I left it.
 
Been doing the airpark thing for about three years now. It's great to be able to walk out of your kitchen and into your hangar.

I'm at 2A2, Holley Mountain Airpark.

Oh, and we have a GPS approach to both sides of the runway.
 
Bought a lot in 2008, and built my house in 2012. Got married in the backyard in 2016. I love it here. It's a private airport with a beautiful grass strip with top notch lights, a PAPI on each end, and two approaches. Approximately 40 households, the majority of which are airplane people, and the majority of those are still flying. Our residents include homebuilders, fighter pilots, airline pilots, A&Ps, one IA. Most houses have hangars, but there is an area of hangars at one end, and one aviation shop on the field. It's a very social atmosphere. The runway connects us, both literally and figuratively.
 
flyingron said:
No. My standard approach in low conditions is to fly the ILS into the airport 5 miles north of here. If I can break out even marginally VFR, I just turn left and head over to our field. Otherwise, I'll park there.
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Same here,

Airport with a IAP not a 5 minute flight away, nice easy to see road from the airport to the house, no airspace or traffic around for the most part, shoot the IAP to a little above circling mins, break off fly the road, straightish shot, land at the house.
 
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flyingron said:
No. My standard approach in low conditions is to fly the ILS into the airport 5 miles north of here. If I can break out even marginally VFR, I just turn left and head over to our field. Otherwise, I'll park there.
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Around my place, it's the opposite. We're on top of a mountain, so folks would fly the GPS to get under the weather, and then continue down to the local airport about 5 miles away and 700' lower, which puts them on a base leg. That doesn't happen quite as often now that they have a GPS approach of their own.
 
paflyer said:
I'm not convinced I'd want to be in a community. HOAs are like garlic to vampires. I could see being just as happy to be 10-15 min max from an airport with a variety of approaches/runways and on-field services. Assuming a reasonably affordable hangar is available.
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My HOA has very few rules, and the fee is a whopping $400 a year. Most of the rules are rules we all want like "don't put a 400 foot flagpole up in the pattern", "don't have animals run loose onto the runway", "don't put up a fence 4 feet off the taxiway".....

paflyer said:
Do your airparks have IAPs?
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I'm same as others above, no approach, but 7 miles away from a towered airport with an approach.

teejayevans said:
Name or ID FFR?
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X05
 
pburger said:
Bought a lot in 2008, and built my house in 2012. Got married in the backyard in 2016. I love it here. It's a private airport with a beautiful grass strip with top notch lights, a PAPI on each end, and two approaches. Approximately 40 households, the majority of which are airplane people, and the majority of those are still flying. Our residents include homebuilders, fighter pilots, airline pilots, A&Ps, one IA. Most houses have hangars, but there is an area of hangars at one end, and one aviation shop on the field. It's a very social atmosphere. The runway connects us, both literally and figuratively.
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I really wish y’all say which airparks you’re talking about, since I’ll be looking next year.
 
teejayevans said:
I really wish y’all say which airparks you’re talking about, since I’ll be looking next year.
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If you click on my avatar and look really close under the word PUB, you'll see the name of the airport. Dry Creek Airport (TS07).
 
If we are in a position to afford it in 30-40 years when we retire I wouldn't be surprised if we looked at one. Especially Stearmen Field (1K1)
 
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3 years ago an add in 1 of these forums offered a modern, newish, 3 bedroom double wide on a strong, raised foundation, with garage, work shop, and hangar. the lot had lots of open space with plenty of room for 1 or 2 more hangars. grass strip right out front 6500 ft long, pan handle of florida, near the gulf, and the atlantic, 25 miles from 2 big towns and georgia! i thought real hard about selling out here near seattle and making the move. here is the thing!!! the price,,, 105,000$ !!! not a typo...

https://skyvector.com/airport/74FL/Jefferson-Landings-Airport
 
When I lived in Michigan I used to do a $100 pizza run frequently to Dalton Field, 3DA, a public-use airport that also has an airpark community with a number of nice houses lining 18/36. I realized early on that I would never want to live there, since not only does it not have an IAP, but it also has no VGSI which means it's usually not safe to land there at night (absent a full moon) because of obstructions. There was also the fact that 18/36 was somewhat short, with 800 ft displaced thresholds at both ends, and 9/27 was even shorter.

I'm not aware of any airparks in Vermont, but I'm pretty sure that if there are any, they're grass (so forget about winter ops, or really anytime November through May) and don't have IAPs or VGSIs.
 
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