daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

I also would not use the spikes. we did use them because we didn't know any better but they are not needed. The staples we used are called "turf staples". They are 6" long and 2" across the crown. The staples around the edge are spaced about 4" and the seams are spaced 2". I will post a pic when I am home.

David

SaviCatses

We have something extremely familiar, but it was free. I'm not quite sure where it came from, but I beleive it might be a paper mill that uses a woven fabric for their conveyor belt material. The stuff is very wide and long (don't know exact measurements) and we nailed it down with spikes and washers.

The factory that gave us the material was happy to do so; you should give a call in your area.

We also use it for both the pits and the runway. Ours lasted a very long time (10 years?) and we just now received more material since the current one is getting rather old.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Hee is a pic of one seem. The darker areas show how much overlap we used. The seam with the staples close together is the end joint. The other is of course the side to side. Our complete job used 7,000 staples. That is for a 45'x500 runway& a 12'x200 ramp with three 12'x50' taxi ways.



david

qfinger2004

This fabric idea is awesome...typical brillian RC ingenuity. Anyway, do you guys think it would be any good for an "on-road" outdoor track for RC cars? Seems like you could cut the turns as needed and use lengths right off the roll for straights...

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

I think you would have a few problems. For one it is only as smooth as what's under it. It does stretch over the imperfections but can be bouncy at high speed. Second It is plastic. I don't know what kind of traction you will get. I don't have an RC car to try on ours or I would say for sure. Maybe somebody out there can do a test for you.


David

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

Did you guys just put the staples around the edges or did you put them in the field (middle) as well? If you put them in the mid, how often did you put them in (spacing)?

Also, I got a lot of different samples. Do you think the 2006 would work for the runway as well? It is a lot cheaper.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

The picture I posted is one of the center seems. The material stretches so tightly the center seems are very important. You will get gaps if you dont use a good overlap with several staples.

We used two different grades mostly because of the UV(ultra violet) rating. I think the heavier stuff had a 90% UV and the lighter was 70%. We thought the sunlight was going to be the eventual end of the material. We are going on 5 years with no noticeable difference between the two so who knows. Also be sure to figure the price by the square foot. The lighter material is 12' wide and the other is 15' wide. There is still a price difference but it is not as great as it looks at first glance. Our runway is 43'x500'. Had we used the 2006 it would be 34'X500'. I would rather our runway be shorter than narrower. We rarley run off the end but some lands in the grass every time we fly.


David

Tom I have not forgoten you. I just have not been to the field.

tomriddle

My Feedback: (3)

All,

Thank you very much for a highly informative thread.

Our field is in northern Virginia and is located on land owned by the Boy Scouts of America. We run Aviation Merit Badge Clinics for the scouts and conduct training as a trade for the access and use of the land. The Boy Scout organization is upgrading the entire facility and will soon be relocating our flying site to a different part of the facility. As part of the deal, the contractor will do "some" (to be determined) of the field preparation - if we can get them the specifications of what we want.

Does anyone have any specifications that we can provide to the contractor regarding how to best prepare the site? What we are looking for is the "contractor lingo" that a contractor could use to grade, pack/roll, crown, etc. Anyone with some specific knowledge (that they would be willing to share) of what to tell a contractor how he needs to prep the dirt/to prepare a field would be greatly appreciated.

We think we would like to stay with grass, but that was before we found this site -- the Propex/Geotex material is awfully intriguing (we are having a hard time finding a replacement for our current field maintenance teamand the grass grows awfully fast in the Summer!). An asphalt or concrete runway is not an option as part of the charter that the Scouts have given us is that the land is to be able to be returned to a natural state." At least now we have an option to put a surfaced runway in place. Thanks again!

v/r

tom

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Tom I wish I could give you the specific lingo. Our land is city owned. We told them we were going to put down pavement. This way we knew it would be packed and crowned correctly.
This matterial can be put down right on the grass. That is assuming the grass area is level and fairly smooth.


David

tomriddle

My Feedback: (3)

David,

Thank you. Actually, that may be a start - if we tell them that we want a road bed quality surface installed...there are certainly standards for that.

We got a nice write up in this month's AMA magazine about our Merit Badge Clinic program...if you are interested, look in the District Reports section for the Viginia District.

v/r

tom

TerrellFlyer

our field is outside Dallas,Tex.,and on an old dump site.We have a grass ,[bermuda] runway and a petromat runway. The petro is about 5 years old now and is a little scary to walk on because as the dump material desolves and shifts there is wide spaces under the petro with no support,can twist an ankle,back or knee. Also we used sand as a base,walking on the petro after a rain cause the sand to shift,the mat is beginning to rot or deteriot and twice we have had to resecure the mat to the ground. The grass takes mowing and fertlizering with some weed killing involved,unfortunelly like most clubs,out of 70 members about 8 to 10 members do the work while the balance give lots of mouth service.Cost and maintaince I vote for grass.

BillyGoat

Gee I sure hope the OP has his runway and doesn't still need input... FIVE YEARS LATER!

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

Curious,, How it's holding up another 6 years later, have you replaced or repaired it??

Our club has grass,, it sucks,, especially this year with the rain,, still can fly,, we'll be lucky to have it ready by Memorial Day
Pounding down staples every year sounds better than waiting for the ground to dry at this point

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

We did replace our runway ( I think 3-4 years ago. It's hard to recall the exact date.) Not because the matterial went bad, but because we had an erosion problem. We were not sure how it would go back down, so we bought new. Then pulled up the old to fix our erosion. Our old road bed had a crown. The new is flat. This along with a little deeper drainage ditch along one side has helped. Our taxi ways and ramp are all still in great shape. Our old run way went to another club in Lawton OK. RCKen is the club pres down there. They were able to trim off all of our staple holes and lay it back down. As far as I know it is working fine for them. There was a write up in the Dec 2009 Model Aviation (AMA) magazine about their new flying site and our old runway.
I should also say pounding down staples every year is not a big deal. Most of the time I can run the tire of the riding mower over them to push them back down. I am also going to send Ken a PM with a link to this. He can tell you better how the old stuff is holding up.

david

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

David, I do remember reading that,, I didn't make the conection. Sounds like it been a good investment overall

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

I would not do it any other way. Blacktop may have a few advantages, but the bad out weighs the good. With black top, you need to seal it and fix cracks. This is almost maintenance free. Not to mention, this is a lot easier on planes. Drag a wing tip on blacktop and you have a problem. With this stuff, you have a black mark. Props do cut it, but the prop will survive most of the time. I just can't say enough good things about it.

Here is a pic from last years fly in. Turbines make a nice smoke trail. :-)

david

DaveJohansen

My Feedback: (8)

I take it the turbine jets don't damage it either? Still trying to get our field to put this down.

Dave

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

The turbines we have had don't hurt it. There may be certain models with the exhaust closer to the ground that could potentially be a problem. This turbine did kill a large section of grass preflighting his smoke system. :-)

david

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

Any updates on the conveyor belt runways?

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

Vic, cloth conveyor belt runways are all that the local club has used since I've lived here. Back in the days when the cloth was first laid down the ground below had not been compacted real well. The other problem is the spikes that pinned the cloth down pulled out too easily when gale force winds came through. Cattle walking on the cloth also was a problem.
Make sure that the ground below is very firm, hire a compacter guy to crunch in some crushed gravel when the ground is moist in early spring.
Make "staples" out of rebar to hold the canvas down firm. I use OxAcetylene to bend crisp 90's in the staples.
Allow / encourage the grass to overgrow the edges of the cloth. This is Mother Nature's way of preventing high winds from sending your runway into the next county.
Even though the original installation wasn't done "right"..this runway has served us very well over the years.
It needs a Clorox bath to kill moss once a year and that's about it. If you have moles, use a shotgun, then patch the hole with a carpet needle.

cexdonnr

This worked great for us. The club in Amarillo had thiers down before us.

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

You guys may have heard about some high winds last week. We don't even have a windsock anymore.
Our runway is...er...was made of fabric over plastic. It looked great and was the smoothest surface ever. It worked great for small electrics. However we have only gotten about 5 years out of it before a major overhaul. The windstorm killed it a little earlier than we planned.

What would really help me is to tell how you guys aquired the belts and if you paid full ticket or got a great deal.
Thanks

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

You live near water, so chances are good there is a paper mill or other mfg that use massive conveyor belts. A head start is simply knowing someone who might know someone who will contact you when they have a scheduled shutdown to change belts. Luckily, our club of 100 guys had at least 1 who was on the inside track when it came to sourcing a 280x 20 belt. I never did see how big of a roll it was when first delivered, but 280 is adequate for most 1.20 & under sport planes that aren't too heavy. Some guys who show up from bigger fields get the "Heebie-Jeebies" when they first see how short it is.

vicman

My Feedback: (10)

http://www.caldwellaeromodelers.com/club_info.asp
What we had was 30 x 300. Now we have a war zone.[:@]
I'm trying to find "that" guy