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soft surface runway

R

Ron B.

Well Known Member
Had enough with my grass strip being soft from the growth of moss. It holds the moisture and the soil stays wet all the time. I have two choices, one kill the moss and grass and start over. With this option I know five to seven years I will have to re-do again. Second is to remove the sod and top soil and install class A gravel. A friend used Class A gravel and seeded it. His is firm and from a short distance you would not know it was gravel.
I'm wandering if 30 feet of gravel would do for me with soft sod on both sides much wider. My strip is probably 150 feet wide now.
Any thought would be appreciated, and I know width depends on proficiency. Joe in Maryland had us land on a 35'X6000' paved runway back when we did transition training in the 10 to see if we could stay centered and even in transition training 35' was not an issue.
 
30' is plenty wide enough. I used to hanger my C-152 at 45G which has a runway only 24' wide. Instructors like bringing their students there for proficiency if they have trouble hitting the center line of a 100' wide runway!
 
One of my concerns is after the grass has taken over the gravel , I expect the grass to be a different shade from the soft grass surface on each side of the graveled strip. I would think you should be able to see where the harder surface is . And my strip is listed as prier permission required , but what if someone decides to land unknowing there is a difference in where to land. I know they landed without permission but ig they have problems it's still a bad situation.
If it didn't take an hour to change the deck height on my 15' gang mower I would let the grass grow a little higher on each side as a marker. I may have to find something like a rubber mat that would be white and that my mower can pass over without having to move each time. Right now I have six marker cones designating the end of the runway a ways out from a power line and they are a pain in the butt to have to move each time I mow.
 
Ron B. said:
...I may have to find something like a rubber mat that would be white and that my mower can pass over without having to move each time....
Click to expand...

I think pieces of mat on each side (alternating each side ) every 200' would be the easiest. cheapest, and fastest way to fix the issue of the runway boundary.
 
I looked into that once, it's crazy expensive, probably more expensive that making it with asphalt !
 
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