Build a Private Airstrip Or Land on One? Think Twice

Let's hypothesize that some Sourdough wants to build a grass airstrip on his property so that his Cheechako buddies can visit. Below are mistakes the former might make that the latter might encounter – to his peril. The list should give prudent pilots plenty of food for thought before they land on any private airstrip... or build one.

A visiting flyer could encounter problems if the airstrip is:

• Adequate for the owner's one seater with a STOL kit and tundra tires who is familiar with the quirky bumps and holes, but problematic for other pilots and other planes. (for example, a short, narrow strip with animal holes at the end).
• Built on soft or clay soil with no underlayment and no camber for drainage, soupy in rain, rutted after a prior friend landed or a moose walked through, uneven shifting due to permafrost and ice heave.
• Studded with rocks that are loosened by each visitor, pitting propellers and low winged aircraft.
• Too short for visiting airplanes, or long enough to land but too short for visitor take offs when temperatures or humidity rise (leaving Cheechako Charlie a stranded, and possibly unwelcome, visitor until the weather changes).
• In many parts of the country, and CERTAINLY in Alaska,  the runway will be wet, slushy, and icy  many times of year.  As any car driver in similar situations can imagine, the rule of thumb for safe landings in these conditions is to multiply one's "normal" landing distance by 1.4 when wet, by 1.7 for snow, by 2.3 for standing water/slush and by a whopping 3.5-4.5 for ice.  PLUS a 15% margin of error.  So, for example, a Cessna 182 and 206 generally can land in 1400 feet.  However, ski planes have NO BRAKES unless one adds them (a $2000 extra).  A safe ski plane pilot  would avoid an icy strip of less than 5600 feet,  especially if there are trees, roads, or homes at the far end of the luge lane, or if the strip angles downward.  The past two warm winters here made strips perilously icy.  Pilots avoided our neighbor's strip in the woods all winter long.  They stuck to the much larger (if still icy) lake.        
•  Wide enough for the owner's plane or experienced pilots but too narrow for occasional pilots or in cross winds.
• Contains a tricky curve, laterally or vertically!
• Built steeper than the recommended 2% grade lengthwise or greater than the 2.5 % camber widthwise, or it angles down instead of up for landings, or the lay of the land changes over time and is not regraded by the owner.  Oriented downward, a 1% grade can increase a pilot's needed landing distance by 10%.  3% grade = 30%!  And who can see that from the air? 
• Obstructed on the ends, sides, or even middle of the strip – a downed tree, a piece of machinery, animals, trash, a windblown plastic chair.
• Oriented toward the prevailing wind in some seasons but not others. Positioned where mountains throw up quirky weather.  Positioned where landings speed up because of common tailwinds. 
• Infrequently maintained if the owner is not a frequent flyer. For example, the grass could be high enough to obscure obstructions, ruts or animals except right before the owner/pilot plans to fly.  Wet grass contributes to hydroplaning, while dry grass can "grab" on landing. (Where we live, the wild grasses grow one foot per week to eight feet and then flop over everything nearby).
• A windsock at ground level surrounded by trees/buildings will not offer much useful information, and it may be contrary to conditions above trees ... where you need it.
• Finally, most airplane insurance does not cover landings on private residential strips. Those visits are strictly “at your own risk,”  understandably!  The factors that most grossly exaggerate the length required for a safe landing are strips that are slippery (from ice, snow, water), where landings are graded downhill with a tailwind.   

The owner of the airstrip may encounter problems he didn't contemplate, either.

Flies in My Outhouse - Chickens to the Rescue

Most women I meet have a spontaneous “ugh” reaction when they learn that we rely on an outhouse at our off-grid home. Then they are silent. Maybe they can't imagine it. Or maybe they picture a disgusting porta-potty at an overcrowded public venue. So, as a public service to polite, silent, curious people, here is a ”tell all” about what it is really like living with an outhouse.

Perma-potty

The hole beneath is 4 x 5 x 6 ft: plenty large for the two of us for a decade or more! Every once in a while we toss some lime down there, but let's face it; an outhouse is a low maintenance space.  Above ground, I asked for a large space because I am scared of spiders, and so I wanted lots of elbow room. Thus, our outhouse is 4 x 8 inside, which, if you think about it, is about the size of powder rooms in many homes. For ventilation and light, it has two screened windows and screened soffits under the high, steep eaves. We also added one of those whirly-gig things you see on the roofs of many houses to release the rising heat in attics. In our case, this one punctures the hole beneath the structure and carries away any methane. Thus, there is no more disagreeable smell in our outhouse than when one is alone in a powder room.

There are other inconveniences, no doubt. It is outside and unheated, and in Alaska! So, in the corner of our bedroom, we have a “chamber pot” like your ancestors did. For us, it is a white 5 gallon bucket, on top of which sits a camper's plastic toilet seat with a round aperture for just such an application, topped by the bucket lid. The arrangement is about the same height as a regular indoor toilet, so it is easy enough for a sleepy person in the middle of the night, except for the privacy issue, which took me  some getting used to. Every morning, I dump the bucket in the outhouse and rinse it at an outdoor spigot. About once or twice a week I swish it out with vinegar.

Free Ranging Ducks and Chickens - Hide and Seek with Eggs

Geo-caching is a high-tech version of hide and seek, complete with GPS and computer resources.  Our decidedly low-tech version is finding where our free-range ducks hide their eggs every morning.

Waddling home, always single file

During the winter, Mrs and Daylate, our harlequin females, lay their eggs in the nesting boxes of the coop they share with our Rhode Island Red chickens. But as soon as the snow recedes around the roots of trees, they explore options for future nests – waddling under overturned root balls and digging their bills into rotted trees and surrounding earth to assess softness. When the top several inches of a desirable location has warmed up, we no longer find eggs in the coop and start our morning game.

Citizen Scientists Monitor Lakes in Alaska

Once a month from May to October, Laura and Bryan Emerson squeeze into their blue tandem kayak surrounded by $4600 worth of scientific equipment and paddle out to the deepest section of their remote lake to measure water quality. An hour or so later, they fly the samples and notes via their 1954 Piper PA-20 to a staff member of the Mat-Su Borough Volunteer Lake Monitoring program, who meets them at a roadside lake in order to whisk the time sensitive samples to a lab near Palmer.

Kayaking out to test the lake water
photo by Howard Feldman

To date, the Emersons are the only volunteers monitoring an off-road lake, and the program coordinator, Melanie Trost, would like to recruit additional flyers for the summer of 2015.  “Even people who cannot do monthly water sampling can help with occasional observations,” says Melanie. “We welcome reports of dumping, pollution, and invasive plants in our lakes and rivers. One concern is old polystyrene docks, which beavers and muskrats chew and burrow into, and the sun deteriorates, releasing the little foam beads into the watershed where it looks like food to birds, fish, and mammals. Pilots can tell us what they see on a particular time and day at a lake they visit.”

Float Plane Differences from Wheeled Planes

Are you a wheeled plane pilots who says, “One of these days, I'll get rated on floats?” Or perhaps you are a traveler who watches seaplanes take off and land?  Either way, below is a primer about some differences between planes on floats vs wheels.  (Our Piper has skis, floats, and wheels). 

Undercarriage:

Sleeping under the summer midnight moon

The most distinctive aspect of a seaplane (or float plane) is obviously the undercarriage. The floats (or pontoons) look like huge, bloated, Ronald McDonald shoes compared to puffy tundra tires and dainty tarmac tires. On our little Piper PA-20, the float assembly weighs 150 pounds more than wheels – the weight of an adult, cutting down on payload and fuel efficiency, and introducing additional drag. Other, less obvious differences are that floats are mounted directly to the fuselage with no suspension system, and that float planes have no brakes. They can rely on the friction of the water to slow down and stop.

Pre-flight:

Pre-flight checks of the floats underscore the fact that they are designed to function like boats, so many of the terms and design features are similar. In fact, we secure our float plane to an angled dock with a boat winch. In this position, most of each float is elevated above the water line, so we can inspect the keel (the bottom of the float) before sliding the plane down into the water and maneuvering it with a tow rope over to the adjacent boat dock, where we conduct the other pre-flight checks. Internally, the floats' bulkheads are divided into six watertight compartments, which must be “sumped out” with a portable bilge pump to remove any accumulated water (rain from above or seepage from below). Another chore is to check the retractable water rudder at the stern of each float. Some float planes also have a fin added under their tails for extra stability.

The ducks coming out to say "good morning"
to their floating friend