Live in air parks in warm areas

bumblebee

Filing Flight Plan
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
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”.
 
… All looked good, except they required each property owner to provide a personal vehicle, along with the airpark/airport property. …
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.
 
There are 70 or more airparks in Florida.

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.
 
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.
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.
 
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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.
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.
 
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