July 13 — To any hobbyist the convenience of living near one’s avocation is obvious. For most of us it just involves stepping out to the garage, or down the cart path to the 1st tee. But when one’s hobby is an airplane, hanging out near your wings gets tougher. Airports and hangars don’t grow on trees, and who wants to drive a long way to indulge one’s passion.
Enter the airpark, a surprisingly (to us anyway) prevalent phenomenon. Topretirements.com just ran across a nice blog for plane owners - Living With Your Plane - http://fmi.typepad.com/lwyp/2007/07/residential-air.html - that specializes in airparks - airstrips with adjacent houses on the property. LWYP has published some helpful research studies and lists on its site.
Research from Living With Your Plane indicates that about 20% of existing airparks have 50 or more attached homes, so some of these communities are substantial properties. Demographically, about 15% of people who live in airparks are over 66 years of age - the predominant owner is between 45 - 65 with no children living at home. Annual income is more than $100,000 and most owners do not consider their airpark home their primary residence.
The site lists 30 airparks that are built on public airfields - most are in the western U.S. A lot more airparks are on the way too. LWYP has published a list of almost another 30 airparks that are under construction or in the planning phase.
If you have a plane, you need to visit this site!
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