Building a private strip in Mexico

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Bill Jeffreys

Filing Flight Plan
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breezyD77
Does anyone have first hand knowledge or know anyone with first hand knowledge on this? Would like to pick someone's brain on this.
 
You will need someone that does all the paperwork for you
I have many friends with runways in their ranches. They have had them for generations so no first hand knowledge

Mexican army likes to protect private runways just in case they are used by bad people.
Some of my friends “close” the runway when not in use with farm equipment

Doable, yes
 
Near Tucson a rural resident calls his airstrip a driveway so maybe a long straight stretch of road could be used and never called an airstrip. Baja Bush Pilots knows a lot about Mexico.
 
Bill Jeffreys said:
Does anyone have first hand knowledge or know anyone with first hand knowledge on this? Would like to pick someone's brain on this.
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Yup. Been there, done that. Plan on it taking years and multiple trips to CDMX.

Snowmass said:
Near Tucson a rural resident calls his airstrip a driveway so maybe a long straight stretch of road could be used and never called an airstrip. Baja Bush Pilots knows a lot about Mexico.
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Off airport landings in Mexico are prohibited. People do it anyway in some places, but as a long term plan - it's a loser.

rene86mx said:
You will need someone that does all the paperwork for you
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^^ ESO ^^
 
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My first thought was 'what a great opportunity to meet agents of the federal government in person!'.
 
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Mexico, like most of the world outside of the US isn’t super free, you might get away with it as Mexico is pretty disorganized and broke, but eventually you’ll get the attention of all sorts of people. As a occasional one off think you’d be fine, long term frequent use I don’t think it would work unless you have some people paid off.
 
BladeSlap said:
Mexico, like most of the world outside of the US isn’t super free, you might get away with it as Mexico is pretty disorganized and broke, but eventually you’ll get the attention of all sorts of people. As a occasional one off think you’d be fine, long term frequent use I don’t think it would work unless you have some people paid off.
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Yeah, we managed to not only fail to get our new private strip approved, but also the public one shut down due to corruption.
 
For the record I'm not trying to do this illegally haha

Wanted to see if anyone had done it legally and what it takes
 
Bill Jeffreys said:
For the record I'm not trying to do this illegally haha

Wanted to see if anyone had done it legally and what it takes
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Legally is a very vague term in MX, don’t try to use US values in MX
 
The AFAC (Civil Aviation Federal Agency) is a paperwork-driven beast.

To get things done requires time and patience. In which state are you considering this? Closer to the border or closer to Mexico city or ??
 
Rgbeard said:
The AFAC (Civil Aviation Federal Agency) is a paperwork-driven beast.

To get things done requires time and patience. In which state are you considering this? Closer to the border or closer to Mexico city or ??
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I know of a few people who live in Mexico and have planes down there, they keep them N registered
 
If the airstrip/road is in a remote area and on private property and there is an ability to to have a long enough straight road I imagine ranch owners just land.
 
Rgbeard said:
What's that have to do with my question?
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That folks don’t even want to deal with the government aviation sector to the point they’ll keep their planes registered in another country.

Trying to officially open a strip down there, or get the OK to land off airport from those same state entities, no going to happen unless you have a few of their politicians in your pocket.

Ether do the don’t ask but beg for forgiveness bit, or forget it.
 
BladeSlap said:
That folks don’t even want to deal with the government aviation sector to the point they’ll keep their planes registered in another country.

Trying to officially open a strip down there, or get the OK to land off airport from those same state entities, no going to happen unless you have a few of their politicians in your pocket.

Ether do the don’t ask but beg for forgiveness bit, or forget it.
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Ummm, sure.

I've fought the paperwork beast a bunch of times, for other authorizations, it takes patience but it can be done.

Never done it for a private airstrip, and I think it'll be an uphill battle.

As far as the beg-for-forgiveness bit, when it comes to an illegal private airstrip, I think that's a good way to end up incarcerated.
 
Rgbeard said:
Ummm, sure.

I've fought the paperwork beast a bunch of times, for other authorizations, it takes patience but it can be done.

Never done it for a private airstrip, and I think it'll be an uphill battle.

As far as the beg-for-forgiveness bit, when it comes to an illegal private airstrip, I think that's a good way to end up incarcerated.
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Again, Mexico isn’t the United States
 
BladeSlap said:
That folks don’t even want to deal with the government aviation sector to the point they’ll keep their planes registered in another country.

Trying to officially open a strip down there, or get the OK to land off airport from those same state entities, no going to happen unless you have a few of their politicians in your pocket.

Ether do the don’t ask but beg for forgiveness bit, or forget it.
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Yeah there's absolutely no way I'm going to beg for forgiveness on a clandestine airstrip in mexico. and there is most certainly a "legal" way to do it. mexico city will permit the strip. i'm not saying it's going to be easy or entail any logic in terms of the process, but it's possible and i'd like to see if anyone's been thru it.

Rgbeard said:
The AFAC (Civil Aviation Federal Agency) is a paperwork-driven beast.

To get things done requires time and patience. In which state are you considering this? Closer to the border or closer to Mexico city or ??
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Guess i'm in the process of figuring it out. kind of looking for a reason to not sell my plane haha. a private strip near a remote beach (or a cool spot in the mtns) would be that reason. thanks for entertaining the question.
 
Bill Jeffreys said:
Guess i'm in the process of figuring it out. kind of looking for a reason to not sell my plane haha. a private strip near a remote beach (or a cool spot in the mtns) would be that reason. thanks for entertaining the question.
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As I'd asked, and it kinda got overlooked, simply curious what state you're looking at.

BCS? BC? More Southerly like Jalisco? or in the mountains?
 
Rgbeard said:
As I'd asked, and it kinda got overlooked, simply curious what state you're looking at.

BCS? BC? More Southerly like Jalisco? or in the mountains?
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Right. I'm in the process of figuring that out. At this point I am not sure. It is highly unlikely to be near the south-central, population dense areas around CDMX or the Yucatan peninsula. Is it your understanding that complexity would vary by state?
 
Bill Jeffreys said:
Right. I'm in the process of figuring that out. At this point I am not sure. It is highly unlikely to be near the south-central, population dense areas around CDMX or the Yucatan peninsula. Is it your understanding that complexity would vary by state?
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No, I'm just trying to ask without laser-precision, where you're looking. GA is healthy down here, with lots of pre-existing airports.

If you're looking in a populated area, the motivation for a private strip is smaller.

If you're looking for an off-the-grid kind'a place, well, now we're back to square-1.
 
Rgbeard said:
If you're looking in a populated area, the motivation for a private strip is smaller.
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Agree,

The airpark near Cancun has been trying to sell lots for a quite a lot time without assuring that a runway will be there
 
Rgbeard said:
No, I'm just trying to ask without laser-precision, where you're looking. GA is healthy down here, with lots of pre-existing airports.

If you're looking in a populated area, the motivation for a private strip is smaller.

If you're looking for an off-the-grid kind'a place, well, now we're back to square-1.
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Ideally off-grid, something where I can taxi to my house. On the coast in Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Guerrero, or Oaxaca.
 
After that it's a wash as far as state preference goes. I'm looking for beauty in the landscape and that could be mountains, desert or coast. Something that basically every state offers. I'd probably stay away from the perpetually wet zone around the narrow "neck" of southern Mexico.
 
Bill Jeffreys said:
Which public one?
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https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeródromo_de_San_Miguel_de_Allende

Bill Jeffreys said:
Ideally off-grid, something where I can taxi to my house. On the coast in Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Guerrero, or Oaxaca.
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Remember that if you are a foreigner that owning land near the coast is another set of legal hurdles. There have been some recent changes, so I'm no longer confident that this is accurate, but essentially forever a foreigner couldn't own land near the coast. There are work arounds, but that's another thing for you to investigate.

Also, I have an off grid house in Mexico (https://airbnb.com/h/casa-isa). I highly recommend against it. Off grid is a PITA and very expensive. I would recommend on grid with solar panels to offset energy costs if possible. To put a number to it, our off grid system is barely enough to air condition two bedrooms and cost roughly $40K/usd. If you don't want air conditioning, then you can cut that cost down by 60-80%, but then you're living at the beach in 90-95F temps, humidity and no air conditioning. We are in the process of forming a co-op to share the cost of bringing power lines in, which I'm guessing will cost me another $20K or so - which isn't much more than replacing the batteries once.

For what it's worth, I would base my airplane out of a public use airport with a military presence (which is most of them) and do an on grid house wherever I could get land I found desirable, instead of trying to get a big enough chunk to do a fly-in house off grid.

Zeldman said:
Any lakes close by.??

Is it legal in Mexico to land on water.??
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Only at designated seaplane bases or by special permission.
 
rwellner98 said:
We are in the process of forming a co-op to share the cost of bringing power lines in, which I'm guessing will cost me another $20K or so - which isn't much more than replacing the batteries once.
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How many miles of line is that?
 
Bill Jeffreys said:
How many miles of line is that?
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I will answer it in two ways:
1) The project cost is about $120K/USD and is maybe 3-4 miles. We are putting together a group of people to fund the development, rather than just me doing it on my own. In the three years since I did off-grid solar (because otherwise I was going to have to fund the grid power solo), I now have multiple neighbors interested in working together on the project.
2) This information isn't very useful because the costs will be so highly variable depending on location. We need additional high tension lines, in a forested and hilly environment as well as a requirement for the local delivery lines to be buried because of our proximity to the ocean.

You are going to need to evaluate things based on the circumstances of any particular opportunity you might come across. One major item is that any terrain suitable to creating a private strip should be vastly less expensive to drag power into than in our area.
 
rwellner98 said:
Off airport landings in Mexico are prohibited. People do it anyway in some places, but as a long term plan - it's a loser.
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During training in 2006, my CFI's best friend was arrested in Mexico for an off airport landing (he was freight dogging computer chips for some company in the interior). After 2 weeks in jail he was released. The plane despite a perfect landing, was not allowed to be repaired and flown off. They required it to have the wings removed and trucked out.

I often get vectors to fly into Mexican airspace by El Paso approach (they have an LOA). I now decline these vectors ... LTC and an off airport landing in Mexico is no bueno ...
 
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