EVER WANTED TO BUILD YOUR OWN RUNWAY? OUR EDITOR DOES, SO HE ASKED A FEW PEOPLE HOW THEY WENT ABOUT IT AND COLLECTED SOME ADVICE ON THE PITFALLS.
I had cause to drop into Yamba recently and I remembered the story of Bob McIntyre who decided he wanted to build an airstrip on his land. So, he rang the local council and they thought it was a good idea. They thought it was such a good idea that they even lent him their equipment to assist him with the build. That ain’t gunna happen in this day and age. Still, don’t let that discourage you. Bob has passed away, but if you happen to be buzzing around near Yamba, drop into YPLT (Palmers Island/Maclean) and see what one bloke can do if he sets his mind to it.
I’ve always fancied the idea of my own personal landing strip. So, for all of us with dreams of landing and walking to the house, here’s a quick rundown on the ins and outs of building your own. Let’s start off by discussing the difference between an airstrip/ALA and an airport/aerodrome. An airstrip is a private place for you and your guests to take off and land. In CASA language, it’s called an Aircraft Landing Area (ALA). They also call an airport an aerodrome. Sigh.
The rules — and what you can and can’t do in an area — change greatly by council and land usage type. So no, you won’t be flying your fixed wing out of a suburban back yard, regardless of your aircraft’s STOL characteristics. There may have been a bloke who was possibly related to me who rebuilt a Tiger Moth in his garage on the edge of the Yarra River during the 1970s and allegedly flew it off the lawn before his ex-wife could destroy it… but no one can prove that. In the modern era, that isn’t going to happen without some severe recriminations. So, forget your urban airstrip. What follows is a more likely scenario.
Massive cop-out: What follows is the uniformed views of the author and his opinionated mates. Do your own research before getting too excited.
If you have acreage, then it becomes a lot more plausible. Remember to take most of this as a guideline, because every state is different, and every local council is its own duchy as far as rules and interpretation go. But here we go… Most land has a usage classification — rural, mixed-use, etc. So, you need land that doesn’t have the wrong type of usage, where activities such as aviation aren’t prohibited. The next thing to check is that you don’t have an overlay — like environmental protection, cultural significance, or similar – that might require you to apply for a permit. Remember that you can always apply for a permit for anything — it just might not get approved. Provided you don’t have a clash with the land use classification or a conflicting overlay, then you probably won’t need council permission for a landing strip. An extra disclaimer just in case you didn’t get the first one — this is entirely subject to your local council and a couple of other factors.
Factor number one: neighbours. If your neighbour hates the sound of aircraft and you’re overflying his chook shed, you might find them complaining to the council and you will probably receive a ‘please explain’ An airstrip is a private place for you and your guests to take off and land. notice. That almost never goes well. So, have a good chat to your neighbours, figure out an orientation to minimise impact, and fly neighbourly. At the end of the day, there is only one way to know for sure if your local council or CASA is going to have an issue, and that is to ask them. There is a school of thought that says ‘it is better to seek forgiveness than approval’. However, I’m not so sure in this case that the council or CASA are the forgiving type, so I’d be asking upfront. That’s not to say you can’t work the rules. One nameless gentleman we spoke to who has been through the process, suggested that you avoid building an ‘aircraft hangar’. Apparently, that could trigger a bunch of requirements. In the end, he applied for a permit for a farm shed. The fact that he stores an aircraft in it is coincidental. This was done based on a friendly council officers’ advice. Take it as you will.
The one group of people who can easily ban you from using your land as a landing strip is CASA. As soon as your wheels leave the ground, you’re in their territory. If it conflicts with CASA’s existing airspace or activities, you are going to find your fun being severely limited. Interestingly, the 1998 Civil Aviation Act, which covers this, doesn’t actually have a section dedicated to Airfields — or Aerodromes as CASA likes to call them — but it forms the basis of how they get to make the rules and enforce them. And if you can figure out how that works, maybe you would make a better civil servant than I would. Regardless, you would probably want to run your plan by them before going too far. We reached out to CASA like real journalists and hit them up with a general enquiry on the subject.
Second massive cop out: What follows is actually the official position of CASA as relayed to us by a CASA Spokesperson. So, you might take this next part as being gospel.
“A small airstrip on private property will generally be classified as an Aircraft Landing Area (ALA). ALA are not oversighted by CASA, nor are there any specific regulatory requirements for operating an ALA. Any place (including ALA) may be used as an aerodrome if the pilot and/or operator of an aircraft determine it is suitable for that purpose.”
Boy, they really shouldn’t have told me that.
The responsibility for safe operations at an ALA lies with the pilot in command and operator under the conditions of sub-regulation 91.410 (2) (a) (iv) of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998. CASA has produced some guidance on the use of ALAs. This guidance is aimed primarily at pilots to assist with the assessment of a location for landing or taking off, however may be useful as general information for the operator of an ALA. Please see advisory circular AC 91-02 v1.1 Guidelines for aeroplanes with MTOW not exceeding 5,700 kg — suitable places to take off and land. The Part 139 Manual of Standards provides a set of standards that certified aerodromes must comply with. This document may also be used as general guidance for uncertified aerodromes and ALAs with relation to aerodrome systems, lighting, infrastructure, and so forth. This story from Flight Safety Australia discusses what is needed for pilots to operate safely at ALAs: “Plan before you land | Flight Safety Australia.”
Okay, so I started to lose focus around the third paragraph, but we included it because there is some handy information there. Whenever I read CASA material or any planning information, I start to suffer from MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) but if you push through the above resources, you can actually see that if you’re not conflicting with CASA regulations, they will let you do your own thing. Best to check though.
One man who decided not just to have an airstrip, but went the whole hog is Gary Baum from Lethbridge. Back in 1991, he decided to build and operate an airstrip. Gary was an ultralight pilot from back in the day when, to be an ultralight pilot, you simply bought an ultralight and flew it. If you survived, you were a pilot. He flew Thrusters at Bacchus Marsh.
But all the GA pilots were a bit snooty about it, so he decided to investigate his own airstrip. He looked at several properties, but price and unhappy neighbours at other sites eventually led him to Lethbridge. He spoke to council and said they would approve it if he could convince the neighbours that it was okay. Gary must have been a pretty persuasive fella, because all the neighbours signed on. Gary now had an airstrip. Then it figuratively took off. Each year for the next 15 years they built a new hangar. In fact, it got so big that council said he had to rezone the whole thing. Which he did, at great expense. But that turned out to be a good idea because there’s now 40 odd hangars and over 80 aircraft based there, with an active school and flying club.
You can save yourself a lot of trouble by just buying Lethbridge, because after 30 years he is retiring and it’s on the market. So, if you’ve got 13-odd million dollars lying around and want to own an airport, this might be for you. If you haven’t got 13 million dollars handy, your own patch of land in an Air Park like Aquila Estate in Queensland might be the best of both worlds — you can read more about the Estate’s progress in this magazine. But if you still have a hankering to build your own airstrip, then I hope this has been useful. Of course, I do have a philosophy on projects that I never want to find out too much information or I would never attempt anything. So, what’s stopping you?
