I have been looking for landing strips from where to fly the Mini-Max. Till now that thought was lurking at the back of my mind, but it was on a lower priority with my attention being consumed by the build process itself. And honestly, I was not even sure whether I would be able to complete the project.
But now that there is an 80 % chance that I may complete the airplane, I am beginning to wonder what if I really make an airplane only to find I have no place to fly it from. There were a few grass strips where ultralights used to operate to the east / south- east of Denver , but they have all closed in the last 10 years. I live at SE tip of Aurora/Denver , so I prefer to look for landing strips to the east / south east of Denver on the plains.
Presently there is one grass strip about 25 miles to the south east, but that is a privately owned strip. The only other place may be the municipal airport at Limon, CO (KLIC) which is 82 miles to the east one-way. This is a public airport with very limited traffic and thus a good choice, but to trailer a distance of 85 miles for each flight is a daunting prospect. That means about 4 hours spent just in driving up and down. Plus about 1 hour spent in assembling the wings and dis-mantling the wings after flight.
There is a private airpark in Dilbert, CO about 38 miles to the south, but that is open only for residents of the airpark itself. You can land there in an emergency but it is not possible to operate from there as a matter of routine. There is another grass strip at Calhan, but that is even further away than KLIC.
How have other Max owners handled issues of finding a place to fly ? I saw Bruce also inquiring about making his own strip down under. I have no intention to buy land just for making a strip.
What are the options ? My home location is the blue dot on the map.
IF you know anyone else in your area that flys "ultralights" you might want to get into touch with them and see where they fly. Not all private runways will be listed on a sectional. You might be surprised, make a new friend and even get free hangar rent for mowing the runway, atleast that what I did for quite some time.
I have family in Parker CO and just out of curiosity I looked for airstrips in about the area you have indicated. Using Google earth I found what appeared to be several airstrips; I guessed farm/ranch strips, but I don't know. I never checked into any of them but from the Google view they sure looked like runways. Also, isn't there an airstrip at Elizabeth or Kiowa? Seems there was one on the North side of one of those towns.
Lynn, There were 3 strips all about 25 miles to the east on either side of I-70. One was about 10 miles north of Bennett, another about 5 miles east of Bennett in Strasburg, ( north of I-70, very close to the freeway), and another about 5 miles south of Strasburg. They have all closed down. I individually visited each place and saw the land used for corn farming or just abandoned. I was told all these 3 were active with plenty of ultralight flying about 10 years ago, before the financial crisis.
On the south side along 86 East, there was another strip about 15 miles east of Kiowa, about 5 miles to the north of 86 East. That also seems to have disappeared. However I saw a new locator come up on the map about 2 miles south of Elizabeth named Plane view. I need to visit Elizabeth one of these days and confirm on this new strip. But sometimes I have found wrong information on google maps because much of this information is crowd sourced, and not always authentic.
You have my curiosity up enough now that I might get on Google and do a virtual "fly-over" of the areas you've talked about and that I've traveled through. I get out to Parker to visit one or two times a year. Maybe we could arrange to meet up sometime when I'm there since it seems you live relatively close to Parker.
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