[talk-au] farm airstrips

[Sam Cantwell]

French Island is often used by flight schools as a training area for 
pilots due to its low population, specifically for practicing engine 
failures where the student will glide the plane down to 500 ft and 
simulating the emergency procedures before flying back up to altitude. 
When I was completing flight training, I was told that in the past, 
students were allowed to perform a "touch-and-go" (the plane lands and 
then takes off again without stopping) on French Island during simulated 
engine failure. I'm not sure if this was done only on the mapped 
airstrips, or on other farms too. Perhaps the airstrip in question was 
mapped because it was previously used by students for training.

This practice isn't allowed anymore so any landing strips mapped solely 
for that purpose should be removed. It might also explain the "Overpass" 
name.

Cheers,
Sam

On 29/4/2024 18:04, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the DWG was contacted by the owner of some farmland about an 
> aerodrome=airport that was mapped on their property and which they 
> would like to have removed since it was not a published airstrip and 
> while they occasionally used it for take-offs and landings they don't 
> want ir promoted.
>
> My standard response in cases like this would be "I can mark it 
> access=private but if something is clearly there, I cannot remove it."
>
> I have checked with aerial imagery though and there is absolutely 
> nothing on the aerial imagery that would set this "airstrip" apart 
> from the neighbouring grassland. Yes it looks like I could land a 
> plane there, but I could also land a plane the next field over, or a 
> little bit further east or west - it all looks the same. I assume that 
> there might be a clue locally like a windsock or so, but other than 
> that, nothing.
>
> I'd therefore be tempted to delete the airstrip from OSM. Opinions 
> about that? Here's the area:
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/-38.3681/145.3901
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>