Airfield guide tops 300 backcountry airfields

The Recreational Aviation Foundation’s Airfield Guide now lists more than 300 airfields, with destinations in each US state.

“The Airfield Guide began as a challenge to find all the grass strips in Arkansas,” RAF Arkansas Liaison Dave Powell said.

Powell and RAF member and IT developer Chip Gibbons took up the challenge. Chip wrote the software and Dave began leading a small group of pilots to identify local airstrip characteristics and the Airfield Guide began.

Fly OZ, the interactive listing of 64 backcountry airfields in the Ozarks, has continued to expand within the Guide.

“Refining as we went, amenities and search functions evolved as we added strips,” Powell added.

RAF officials were impressed and struck a partnership to expand the directory nationwide.

The RAF’s network of state liaisons are tasked with surveying airfields with recreational opportunities to include in the Airfield Guide.

The Airfield Guide includes public and private airfields and defines them as either Permissive (green), where users don’t need to ask for permission, and Conditional (yellow), where a condition needs to be met before use, such as a required Safety Briefing or prior contact with owner.

Many listings include photos, and some include videos of approaches and landings.

Users will find basic details like lat/long, elevation, ownership, pattern direction, runway length, and CTAF. You can sort by recreational amenities (camping, restrooms, fishing, cell service, etc), region, state, or runway length. Relative Hazard Index (RHI) is included, based on Galen Hanselman’s rating system to help you assess you and your aircraft’s suitability for a particular field.

The “Manage Tour” feature can be used to plan a flight of several locations, upload it to ForeFlight, and email it to fellow pilots, RAF officials noted.