just for kicks,,,Willis Ranch

[Daveroo]

my mothers uncle,Bob Willis decided he wanted to fly one day...so he went and bought a Cessna 185,id allways thought it was a 195..but ive been corrected,he then built a runway,and hanger,had the plane flown in and then learned to fly and got his lic...this property is north of Dos Palace in the San Joaquin valley of California.northeast of Frezno .this is it now..

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im pretty sure ( having never been there) the runway runs from the barn looking building,,and the smaller (what i believe to be the old hanger) up to the top of the picture.

[Jagdflieger]

How cool is that!

[rdaniell]

Daveroo, I lived in Central Alabama for several years. I knew people who did a similar thing. They wanted to fly so they bought an airplane, got the local CFI to get them to where they could solo, and then they just took the airplane home to their private grass strip. :running: BTW, they never bothered with any licensing. :stop: These people were very independent souls and didn't have much use for the federal government. :cowboy:

RD

[n4gix]

That is cool. One of my distant cousins owns 33MO "Leaming Field Airport" on his property in Missouri:

http://skyvector.com/airport/33MO/Leaming-Field-Airport

I bought it from him (virtually) and have made some minor improvements:
http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18498&highlight=33MO
-and-
http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19286&highlight=33MO

[Navy Chief]

A former shipmate of mine has a restored Stearman (painted in USN colors of course:salute:), and lives at Roy E. Ray air park, near Bayou Le Batre (near Mobile, AL).

What fun it must be, to be able to walk out of your house, into your own hangar, start up your own aircraft, and go flying!!

NC

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[Daveroo]

it is all pretty cool..i live not far from the community of Cameron Park..Eldorado county,CA,its one of those places where you land on the runway,have a "clicker" (like a garage door opener) in your plane,which opens a gate,then taxi into the housing tract,the streets are very wide with aircraft right of way in the center,,and cars to the side,which must stop on the side and wait for passing aircraft when present...Patty (shoot i want to say Wagstaff,but im not sure now),,,she flying a T-34 mentor that has a bunch of red/white/blue lights on it and red/white/blue smoke..does a cool aerobatic show...she lives there....a friend,,Jeff R..lives there..he flew A-10s in the first Gulf War,and then flew the F-117 over Bagdad the second time around..also the guy who owns the AT-6..well its an SNJ-5?...has a tailhook,and it has a fender on the tailwheel...i think its the only one of its kind flying....been in the magazines and i think i and others posted pics of it here...he also is/was working on buying two helldivers at one point.Chuch Wahl?...dont remember

[Moparmike]

Here's my grandpa & uncle's place in south-central ND. ND77.
The strip is long neglected since my uncle sold the Skylane in the late 80s. Not sure why it's still listed as an active private strip on the FAA database, but that means it's still in flightsim too.
27/9 runway is the straight chunk of road west of the farmyard.
30/12 has been plowed under for quite a few years...it was just a path cut through what used to be a piece of alfalfa ground...now it's cropland.
The hanger got moved a little south and was last used as a cattle shed.

It's kinda neat ot find out some of the history behind a lot of these little private strips.