Grass Strip Maintenance and Care?

[WLIU]

Its important to know how to work the system. In NH, a friendly legislator sponsored a bill to make aviation and approved land use. Takes care of local issues with flying from your land. Our airport is "private". No public facilities. And when I went for a building permit, I built a "barn" to store my airplane in. There was no box on the form for "airplane hangar" and I did not ask. I checked the "barn" box. Later, an enthusiastic overachiever new neighbor felt the need to tell the building inspector that he was building an "airplane hangar" and the result was a trip into the code for commercial buildings and a huge increase in cost. His neighbors took note and avoid that mistake.

There is very little to be gained by having your "flying field" on the chart. Having a transient crash in your front yard because they thought they would impress themselves by demonstrating their short field skills will convince you of that. You can give your friends your GPS coordinates.

Best of luck,

Wes

[joen6171b]

I don't have a runway, or strip, I just have a long mowed back yard.

[FlyingRon]

We were just building accessory structures until someone got around to reading the state building code at our county office. This was spurred by the fact that they inadvertently approved a massive hangar on one of the neighboring lots. Your choices are to either build a "residential hangar" (no more than 2000 sf in the aircraft parking area) or build your structure to commercial standards. I reduced my 3000sf hangar floor space by quickly adding a workshop and some closets (built with nonstructural walls) in the back of mine. Once you're down in the "residential" category, you really don't have any different construction requirements than those for your car garage (1 hour fire wall...typically a double layer of drywall...if it adjoins living space).

A residential hangar is actually less restricted than an accessory building. There are special requirements when you build accessory buildings near the edge of your property that don't apply to the residential hangar.

[Byron J. Covey]

We were just building accessory structures until someone got around to reading the state building code at our county office. This was spurred by the fact that they inadvertently approved a massive hangar on one of the neighboring lots. Your choices are to either build a "residential hangar" (no more than 2000 sf in the aircraft parking area) or build your structure to commercial standards. I reduced my 3000sf hangar floor space by quickly adding a workshop and some closets (built with nonstructural walls) in the back of mine. Once you're down in the "residential" category, you really don't have any different construction requirements than those for your car garage (1 hour fire wall...typically a double layer of drywall...if it adjoins living space).A residential hangar is actually less restricted than an accessory building. There are special requirements when you build accessory buildings near the edge of your property that don't apply to the residential hangar.

Many states use the same basic building code that includes the reference to a residential hangar. A careful read of the revision in place in Florida in 2008 showed that the code was silent about non-commercial hangars larger then the size specified for a residential hangar. If you find a permit writer who can read, comprehend, and reason, it is possible to get a permit for a larger hangar without having to meet all of the commercial criteria. The code (at that time) did not prohibit it, but it did not explicitly say "You may ..."Having a contractor who has worked closely and collaboratively with the permit writer is a huge plus.BJC

[FlyingRon]

Our permit office and inspectors have been real good. Our state (NC) code is based on the 2009 IBC, so you are right it's common with a lot of places. The IBC is far from silent about hangars that don't meet the residential definition. Such hangars are in Storage Group S. Hangars that meet the residential requirements are in Group U (essentially the same as barns, car garages, sheds, and stables).

My biggest issue was with Zoning. They passed several ordinances about the time we started construction primarily to stomp on single wide mobile homes. One of which requires the front door to be parallel to the street. I guess this is to keep people from putting mobile homes in sideways on skinny lots. The problem is that our front door (and the hangar and garage doors) face the taxiway while our street address is 200' away on a road perpendicular to the taxiway. The problem child zoning enforcement guy cancelled all my permits (including my septic approval) because the plans weren't in compliance. We had a sit down and drew a little nook on the front of my house so I could place the door 90 degrees to the front of the house (it faces the side of the garage so you enter through an alcove...actually more fitting with the Frank Lloyd Wright style of the house) and that made them happy.

A year later when we were getting the CO they want to know where my front door is. I show them. They say that faces another part of the house. I say it only has to be parallel with the street (in fact many of our neighborhood houses are "backwards" on the lot so the front door faces the runway not the street). No problem, the inspector says, I'll just call this other door your front door. So as far as the building department is concerned my front door is the one that leads out onto a deck then you go through a screen porch down steps to another deck down more steps to a patio and then down more steps to my back yard....

[Bob Dingley]

Just saw an item on the daily AOPA newsletter. It seems that a new OK state law prohibits a wind turbine to be installed within a mile and half from any school, hospital or AIRPORT. There is a spate of new applications for farm strips to be charted. It says that a few of the new "airport managers" are even pilots. Some are not.Careful of were you land in Oklahoma, it may be an airport in name only.