Unlicensed Airfield - responsibilities of owner?
 

Dear all - first post here so please forgive any unintentional posting errors.

I am hoping to exchange contracts on a house which includes an unlicensed airstrip which has been used very infrequently (according to the current owners).

Bizarrely they (and their lawyers) are not able to give us any real sense of the legal framework around unlicensed fields.

What responsibilities does the owner have to maintain them?

Do they need to have specialist insurance?

If an a/c wanted to land and could not gain permission via a telephone call etc does the presence of the strip give any specific right to enter?

Is there a process to decommission such an airfield & remove it from the online databases if necessary?

I am sorry to ask so many questions but I would be very grateful if anyone could give me some guidance and/or point me to a resource that would give me chapter & verse.

Thanks again!

W

If you don't want folk to use it just plough it up.

You have no responsability to maintain it whats so ever if you don't want to use it.

And nobody can land on it without your permission unless its an emergency.

And as for decommissioning its however long it takes for a tractor to pull a raper through it. No need to tell anyone.

Of course you can plough it up it is your land,

Of course it might be more fun to first invite some pilots round and have a few goes in different aircraft, see if you like any of them... I do warn you it is an addictive hobby. :E

Will

No pilot has any RIGHT to land on your land, whether it's an airstrip or not. Prior Permission to land must be granted by you, and you alone, for anybody to use it. If someone does land there and you do not want them to, it is your prerogative to request any size of landing fee that you so wish.

Whilst you can de-register it from any publication that it may be published in for pilot's to know about it (Pooleys/Lockyear's etc), most pilots only buy a new copy every few years so it will remain as a 'known strip' for some time to come yet. Additionally, there is every chance that its details can be found online on various websites.

The universally known "don't land here" signal for a strip is a big white cross at either end (at least 10 metres big). Or, you could just spray such a cross into the grass with Roundup.

I'd be interested to know which strip it is as this would give an indication a to how frequently you might get people wanting to use it. Feel free to PM me if you want.

Landing without permission (unless in an emergency) is blatantly rude in the flying world and if it happens, and you aren't happy about it, you have every right to be annoyed.

Ops at unlicensed aerodromes
 

Hi,
You might take a look at:

CAP 793: Safe Operating Practices at Unlicensed Aerodromes | Publications | About the CAA

This has the essential info you need to safely operate an unlicensed aerodrome. Any bit of land (or water!) used for taking off or landing an aircraft is called an aerodrome, even if it's someone's back garden.

Cheers,
TheOddOne

As does Mono, I have an air-strip on my land. It's for my use and any guests that I care to invite (Jonathan, you are welcome!). I cut it when I want to - I change the orientation occasionally - some years its 10 meters wide, some 30. It's my train-set! If you want a second opinion PM me!

The Odd One - Down at the sharp pointy end, where all the weather is made. where I sorted out a parking ticket from Fowey, many years ago?!

Stik

You always need PPR from the owner or operator or else your insurance company wont cough up if you have get a dent !

True, but once you start making a charge for use of a strip you potentially start to incur liabilities for negligence if something goes wrong.

well don't let them takeoff again and start charging them parking until the aircraft is on the back of a lorry

Not if it is a fine rather than a fee:}

I think you will find that a fine can only be issued for a breach of the law - not by a landowner for use of his/her land. You cannot charge for trespass. Any charge you make is either a commercial arrangement (contract) or a claim for compensation for loss - such as damage to a crop - which has to be a real loss -you cannot add a penalty element.

Car parking companies are claiming that by parking on 'their' land you have agreed to a contract which may look like a fine etc - but in reality is no different from any other commercial contract.

Once you enter into a contract you may gain responsibilities unless you expressly make exclusions in advance.

The OP has not been back but as far as I can see he is simply buying a house which has a strip on its land.

He has no interest in aviation; if he did he would not be asking those questions.

He can just grass it over or plough it up.

Nobody should land there anyway without getting permission (by phone) which obviously won't be given.

Jim

To be perfectly honest, if someone lands without being invited, the landowner CAN, if he wishes to stop aircraft landing, charge what he likes and I really don't believe that a landowner can be at fault in the event of a subsequent incident. If an aircraft arrives unannounced, gets charged a disproportionately high landing fee for not being welcome, and is also asked not to return and then hits the hedge on the way out, I think most judges would hardly put the landowner at fault!!

Were someone to land here uninvited then proceed to piss me off - I can promise you they would not be able to take-off. A combine, a teleporter and a tractor and trailer would quickly be called in to "laager" them.

The chaps and I would repair to the pub for a leisurely lunch and get back at dark o'clock, simples!

Note - no mention of prowling gamekeeper with firearm - he'd not be needed!


Stik

W, I am not a lawyer, and what I have to say may be worth no more than you are paying for it. (I leave to you to judge whether other nonlawyer advice on here is worth anything more.)

With regard to emergency landings, as a glider pilot, I have sometimes had to do this. For any one airstrip, or open piece of ground that looks like it could be used for an emergency landing, the odds of anyone needing to do so without prior permission are extremely small. Nevertheless, it could happen.

My understanding is that in that event, you cannot in fact charge anything you like. If there is damage to people, livestock, crop, or property in any other way, you are of course entitled to restitution. This will be covered either by the pilot, or by his insurance. In the case of gliding land outs, the damage is almost always assessed as minimal and the pilot covers it out of his own pocket.

If there is any issue of a large amount of compensation, or the landlord demands that the glider is held by him until he is satisfied as to restitution the landlord is then taking responsibility for the glider and for ensuring that no further damage takes place to it while it is in his care if he refuses to allow the owner to collect it and sort out matters through insurance. I do not know of any case law on this matter, but that is my understanding, when the issue has been raised with legal eagles.


After all, if a vehicle runs off the road, and ends up in your front garden by accident, would you expect to be able to hold the vehicle until they pay a fortune whose size is of your choosing? I think that is a fair parallel.


Hope that helps to clarify the emergency arrival issue.



Chris N

Landowners - whether working farmers or landed gentry, are usually nice people when approached in a friendly and apologetic manner...I'm sorry to trouble you, but I've had to land in your field....

The promise of a bottle of Famous Grouse and a couple of tickets for a ride in a glider at the home club usually cheers up the owner, and perhaps his kids would like to sit in the aircraft and have their photo taken? etc etc.

Balloons are a different matter. They know when they launch they are going to land out, and usually carry a map intensively marked with hostile territory! The commercial balloons carry up to 12 pax, who have paid a fair amount to ride, and the noise they make when firing off the heaters can frighten livestock.

Gliders and small aircraft generally intend to arrive at an airfield when they set out.

This reminds me of an incident several years back on Catalina Island, 20 miles of the coast of Los Angeles.The island is owned by the Wrigley Family (chewing gum) Trust and has an uncontrolled field but the tower is manned for giving field advisories only. One day this guy flies in from LA instead of following the advisory and published traffic pattern of joining on the downwind, he I suppose was lazy and careless and opts to do a straight in, the tower advised him again this was not what they wanted, but he did it anyway.

Bottom line he was refused permission to take off, so he had to fly over a mechanic to remove the wings, rent a truck to transport the now dismantled plane down the hill to the harbour, then hire a barge to take it back across the channel to be unloaded, transported and put back together on the mainland.

Ouch ! I shudder to think what the tab for that was.

Monocock

If you make it known in advance that you make a particular charge then that's fine - but you cannot just impose an unreasonable charge after the event on a whim.

I agree that if the pilot puts it in the hedge that is probably his fault - but if the wheel goes into a rabbit hole then it could be the landowner failing in his duty of care - if he has imposed charges.

I agree, but if the pilot had bothered to call first to be told that landing fees are £75 then he could make the choice if he still wants to land. He didnt, so he should pay the fee!!! Simples.

What you're saying is that it's ok to land without PPR and then refuse the landing fee because you don't like how much it is?!!

There is no such thing as an "unlicensed airstrip" in the context that you put forward - there is simply a piece of land on which one or more aircraft has/have landed on at some time/times in the past.

You have no responsibility to maintain this piece of land as an "airstrip" and nobody (but you) has any right to land an aircraft on it now or any time in the future. You are at liberty to leave it as it is, park agricultural machinery on it, plough it up or graze cattle on it. If someone decides to land on it without your permission and writes off their aircraft (and themselves/their passengers), that is entirely their problem. Indeed, if they take out one of your cows or a piece of scrap agricultural machinery in the process you may well profit financially from the episode.