DaveJohansen

My Feedback: (8)

Great thread. I am trying to do the same with our club's runway here in Taber. We are on native grass with no way to water the grass, so the runway gets pretty rough. With this geotex we can smooth out the soil and have a great runway. I'm looking at ducted fans and the rough runway just doesn't work.

Dave

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Dave, when the club in Amarillo TX put theirs down. They went right over the grass. If it was packed and smoothed first it would work just fine. Dirt would be a little smoother but the grass would work.
Our project is at a standstill right now. We seem to be in monsoon season. We got 5" Sunday the 6th of May. Then another 3" here and there since then. The city is still going to do the dirt work. They just need the weather to agree.
I sent payment in so our new matterial should come in a week or two. Speaking of which. We were able to save the sales tax. Our runway is on city owned land. So I got a copy of the city's sales tax permit and sent it with our payment. This saved the club $300. Not to suggest anybody cheat the state out of tax money. But if your project is on private property your city or county might still be able to have the matterial shipped to them.

Installation pics as soon as progress starts.

David

pinnedup

Our club completed installation of our Geotex runway on Saturday, the installation included a 43' x 500' surfaced runway, pit area, on-ramps, and a brand new control line circle. One observation was that the material should not be stretched during installation as is does shrink when exposed to sunlight, just get pull it by hand to get the major folds out and staple it down well and the seams and edges. The seams should also be sealed with an asphalt emulsion. An installation report will be posted on our website (http://www.laaeromodelers.org/) within a few days.

rcmiket

" Our club completed installation of our Geotex runway on Saturday, the installation included a 43' x 500' surfaced runway, pit area, on-ramps, and a brand new control line circle. One observation was that the material should not be stretched during installation as is does shrink when exposed to sunlight, just get pull it by hand to get the major folds out and staple it down well and the seams and edges. The seams should also be sealed with an asphalt emulsion. An installation report will be posted on our website (http://www.laaeromodelers.org/) within a few days. "

Any info as to cost were to get the material would be appreciated. Our days are numbered at our present field and this is probably the only way we can replace it
Thanks,Mike

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Mike if you drop me a PM I will give you the phone #'s of the people I have delt with. We are waiting for dirt work to get our stuff down. I did pay for it last month. 5 Rolls and 6,000 staples cost us $3,300 and change. This was shipped to us. It actually shipped form the Dallas area even though the people I delt with were in North Little Rock. The 5 rolls I mentioned is enough to do the 45'X500' runway. Not the taxi ways and ramp.

Pinnedup, What sort of emulsion did you use? And why is it needed? Our old stuff was down 8 years with staples and spikes only.

David

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

The Propex arrived today. Yeehaw!!!!!!! No we just need the dirt work to get done. I will get as many pics as possible when work starts.

David

pinnedup

We used an standard asphlat roofing emulsion on the seams to seal them together, the emulsion held down the 1.5" or so flap of materail that extended beyond the staples. Use of the ashplat roofing emulsion was recommended by the supplier. Our material costs are in the same ballpark as David's. Several members of the Club made the stables out of wire used for the bottom cord of a chain link fence, bent them using landing gear benders: 14" leg, 2" crown, 3" leg. This was a lot of work but a major cost saver compared to the price of spikes at $1.00 each. Our runway is a compacted sandy loam and we were able to drive in the the custom made staples. The installation report with materila details and cost should be posted soon at (http://www.laaeromodelers.org/), I'll post a link when the report is out. We had winds in excess of 50 mph here this week so it will be interesting to see how the field held up.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

That's a good idea on making the staples. The ones we use are 6" long with a 1-1/2" crown. These run $50 for a box of 1,000. We are reusing the spikes from the first runway. These are $1 each like Pinnedup said. We use these 12" spikes every 18" around the outside edge only. Then fill in with the staples. If we had to rebuy the spikes we would do without. It takes about 700 of them to go around the edge. Our soil is pretty tight and I think it would stay down fine with out them. Since we already have them it would be foolish not to use them.
I am going to have to look into the emulsion. We did a 6" overlap and used nothing on the seams. We did not have any trouble doing it that way. The emulsion might be good for patches also. We have not found a great patch cement yet. If possible can one of you guys post the brand and/or model # of the emulsion.

David

jimx5000

My Feedback: (1)

We just put a second width of this stuff on our runway(www.leafrc.com). We are trying to figure out how to deal with the seam. How do you aplly the asphalt emulsion. Is it the stuff in tubes of do you get the stuff in a bucket and trowell it down?

Thanks.

Grain

Great thread! I've been trying to figure out a way to have an all weather strip out behind the yard, and thanks to you fellows I now have one.

I'm not exactly sure if the material I received is what you all are using though. I was supplied with 315ST woven material, and while it works well it has some "bubbles" in it, and try as I might I can't stretch them out, and it hasn't tightened up in the sun like I've read about.

I've only laid down a single 100' long piece until I'm sure this is what I want. Any info, hints, tips or suggestions appreciated.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Grain it sounds like the stuff you have is woven a little looser. When we layed out our first stuff the sun stretched out some 3" wrinkles in a few days. I will put a few pics below. Maybe you can tell if it is a looser weave.

David

The first two pics show the book we originally bought from and a seam on our old surface. The next two are samples I got this spring. We bought the Propex. You can tell the US stuff is a lot looser.

Grain

Ah, the 315ST I have looks very similar to the 102F above. I picked up another hundred foot length this week, so hopefully by tomorrow evening it'll be filled out to a nice 30'x100'. This should be the perfect size for the electrics I'm flying, as apparently only 15' of width wasn't quite enough to reliably land on. []

bla bla

Ha, congratulations you guys.
Over here we're lucky if we can find a bit of scrap land and a packet of grass seeds!

pinnedup

The asphalt emulsion was applied with a large paint brush. A complete report on our geotex runway installtion project has been posted by the LA Aero Modelers Club president at http://www.losalamos.com/jerichod/la...tex_runway.htm.

Grain

That was a great write up but the link is broken or something now. Great facility too...it would be great to fly from a strip that big.

I finally got my little airfield done, although it looks like some weed control and mowing needs to be done. It's almost a bit small for my skills yet, but hopefully by next year I'll be wondering why I made it so large.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Grain, I think your right about the size. The more you fly off of it the smaller it could be. We could get by with less now. When we started though it could have been 15' wider. On calm days it could even have been longer.

We are still waiting on dirt work. Looks like we are going to be putting it down in 100 degee weather afterall.

David

DaveJohansen

My Feedback: (8)

Out of curosity, anybody fly turbines off of Geotex? Any problems with the heat?

Dave

carrellh

The club in Rockwall TX has a runway covered with one of these materials and they have several turbine flyers.
http://www.rockwallrc.com

jvino

Is the material used woven?? It looks very similar to a woven polypropylene fabric that we use to cover the ground in greenhouse installations. The stuff we use is guaranteed against UV breakdown for 10 years. If I remember correctly it is about $200 per 15'x300' roll.

DaveJohansen

My Feedback: (8)

Bought a truck in Houston and driving it home. Just so happens that the trip can easily take me by some of these clubs with a geotex runways.

It will give me a chance to gather some more info to sell the idea on my club.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Dave, We are 100 miles west of OKC on I-40. Exit 38. Don't know what route you will take. You may go straight North out of OKC on I-35. If you are going through here let me know. I will give you my cell and meet you at the field. Might as well bring a plane.

David

DaveJohansen

My Feedback: (8)

David

I was thinking of stopping by Elk City. My plan which "Streets & Maps" has me going from Dallas / Fort Worth up to Amarillo. I don't think you guys are far off. Probably coming through on June 28th. As for bringing a plane that might be a problem. I'm flying down for work first and then driving back. Incidentally, I'm flying into OK City and then travelling East to McAlister for work before hopping down to Houston for the truck. Too bad the company I'm doing the training for isn't west of OK City. If I'm going to stop by Elk City I'll send you a PM, Thanks for the offer.

WVrailfan

It has been a long while since this thread was updated. I am looking for ways to improve the runway at the clubI fly at. Currently we have a 300 X 30 foot grass strip. Those of you who have this type of product, are you still happy with it? Is it holding up as well as you had hoped? Anything new regarding installation or care of the product?

Thanks
Jim

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

We are very happy with ours. This thread is old from 2007 but our runway is in great shape. this was our 2nd one anyway. The first lasted 9-10 years and if not for the erosion issues under it, we would still have it down. Our ramps and taxi ways are the original product so they are 15+ years old with no issues. Our old runway was picked up and put back down by RCKen and is still in use at Lawton OK. The Dec '09 issue of Model Aviation has a write about about it.

As far as patches, we have yet to find a great matterial to glue patches down. Part of the issue is the conditions under the matterial when the patch is going on. This matterial holds moisture under it big time. So if there is any moisture when a patch goes on it wont stay. One day I put about 6 patched on using the same process each time. 2 of them came off in the first 30 days. One of them was there a year later. So different areas of the runway hold moisture different ways. In the last few years all we have done is staple patches over big tears and leave the small prop cuts alone. You will get the occasional weed come up through a prop cut. but you get weeds along the seams anyway. We used a 6" overlap, but dirt and seeds blow in there and grow. Have to pluck them 3-4 times each summer. not a big deal.

We don't have a turbine in the club. But we have one every year at our fly in. No issues with it at all.

We rent a striping machine and restripe it every other year before our big event. Weed eat along the edges twice a year. ( we have Burmuda grass here and it creeps) Other than that we dont mess with it. I will cation anyone when has it not to run a mower over it with the blade on and the deck low. It will such the matterial up into the blades. Makes a hell of a mess.

David

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Pic 1 shows the 15 year old taxi way. Pic 2 shows the runway. Pic 3 shows both. You can see see that the taxi way is not quite as dark as the runway. Pic 4 shows a turbine with smoke on passing over our site.

David