What is paradise to aviation folks? A fly-in community for sure.
Being a resident of a fly-in community, flying gets easier. You’re able to enjoy the sky anytime you like as long as the weather is nice and the airport is not under maintenance. The sky is touchable to you.
Besides lighting up your day, living in a fly-in community brings multiple benefits to you and your family including a better environment with natural scenes, private space, and friendly neighbors.
If you have enough budget and still hesitate about whether or not you should move into a fly-in community, check on the content below and find your answer.
Fly-in Communities:
- Knowledge: What Is A Fly-in Community
- Decision: Should I Move Into a Fly-in Community
- Selection: How Do I Choose A Fly-in Community
Knowledge: What Is A Fly-in Community
To begin with, a fly-in community (AKA air park) is a community that’s located in a suburban area with at least an airport. Residents who live inside have the right to use the airport freely with registration and order.
Also, some communities provide renting services. So, if you don’t own an airplane, you can rent one from the community. Of course, there’ll be a pilot helping you out when you don’t know about flying.
It’s the Best Place of Residence for Aviation Lovers
To anyone who loves planes and flying, there’s nothing better than a place where you can fly every day. You can easily sign up, set up, and complete a flight.
Provided with a private hangar, you can have this one-stop enjoyment. Taxi your aircraft from the hangar to the runway and take off directly without hassle. When you’re back, land, glid down, and park your craft in the hangar. It’s just like driving your car in and out of your garage.
Don’t need to worry about running out of fuel. Most of these communities sell aviation fuel!
Decision: Should I Move Into a Fly-in Community
If you make your decision in a hurry without considering other factors, it’s never wise. Before you sign anything on the contract, always evaluate the benefits that a fly-in community contributes and the cost.
Then, have a discussion with your family. Share all the information with every member and get their consent. And eventually, make your decision.
Fly-in Communities Help When You’re Busy Flying
A fly-in community is the best option if domestic travel is a daily routine. The airport is just 5 minutes away from your doorstep. You can just drive your aircraft from the hangar to the airport and take off.
Before you are a member of a fly-in community, you will have to drive an hour or more to get to the airport that’s near the city. And wait in the queue to pass the check-in and abroad. What a waste of your time.
After moving in, you won’t have to get up several hours ahead of the flying time and will have enough sleep to fight the battle. Even if it’s a late flight, you can still get home and have a nice rest to get well-prepared for the challenge the next day.
Time-saving, convenient, and pleasing, that’s what a fly-in community brings to you.
A Fly-in Community Means Natute, Happiness, and Safety
Fly-in communities are far away from cities and factories. Forests, rivers, lakes, grassland, and peace are the special local products here.
If you have kids or have a plan, they can embrace nature with one step only. The air, greens, and water will bring them the ultimate childhood.
More than that, people who live in a fly-in community are ebullient, friendly, and considerate. There’ll be a lot of social events like parties and parades. You and your family are hard to feel lonely here. The neighborhood will let you feel their warm hearts.
Also, to make sure the safety of residents, the community is in a remote area mostly and furthermore, it’s enclosed. Only people who live here and their guests are welcome. Criminals? You need to be unlucky enough to see any.
Fly-in Community Is A Good Investment
The homes in fly-in communities always appreciate in value slowly, or at least, keep stable. Depreciation is never a thing when we think about these houses. If you’re worried, ask the agents to provide you with exact statistics in recent years.
Also, you won’t need to worry about the market too.
Fly-in communities are always popular among the rich and famous. After all, time is the most valuable asset when money is just the zeros in bank accounts. Big names, to save time, will always purchase or rent a property in a fly-in community. They would be happy to take the property!
Build Your Network in Fly-in Communities
Think about it, who will live in fly-in communities? It’s the people who have the same interest as you do.
You will be living among a bunch of experienced and skillful pilots. When you have the same passion – flying, the distance between you and the neighbors is short.
The knowledge of maintenance, skills of flying, ideas of refitting, and anything about planes will be solved. You’re not alone anymore.
Besides, people who live in this community are mostly the rich, the famous, and the powerful. The people that you can only see in newspapers and television will mostly live several hundred meters away. It’s never bad to have them remember you.
Tip:
The cons of living in this community are pretty clear and you’d better think about them. The biggest con is always the restriction to:
- access services and supplies like supermarkets, hospitals, post offices, and online shopping;
- meet and see people outside the community.
Besides, the cost of living here can be pretty high. The care of your plane, the management expense, and the money for the fuel cost a lot. You need to have enough savings or earnings to support that.
Selection: How Do I Choose A Fly-in Community
If you decide to change your lifestyle and move into a fly-in community, next, let’s start to choose a suitable and valuable community. Here are some factors that you must consider. Hopefully, you can filter out the one that you’re looking for.
Fly-In Community Evaluation Rule 1: Locations
We can find one or multiple fly-in communities in almost every state in the US, especially in New York, California, Texas, and, Florida. For you, you need to make sure there’s any fly-in community around the city or state where you plan to stay.
Then, search on the map and see if it’s too far away from the city and the nearby services. If it takes hours to get to the city, you’d better watch out. Since services like hospitals and police stations are not open for private airplanes, you can only drive there when emergencies come.
And the last thing is to check the landform of the surroundings. Evaluate the chances of debris flow or flood.
Fly-In Community Evaluation Rule 2: Community Developer’s Performance
When you target one community, search for the information on the developer first. Are they in good condition or involved in any lawsuit? This decides whether you can really buy a house there.
Next, contact an agent there and ask them for some details other than the regular issues:
- How long will they maintain and repair the airport;
- What’s their budget for the airport and other maintenance;
- How many employees do they have in the airport authority;
- What’s the time of using the airport every day;
- Are there any complaints about air or noise pollution;
- What is the exact procedure for filing a flight;
Get the answers and make sure you’re satisfied.
Fly-In Community Evaluation Rule 3: Equipped Services & Facilities
How far are the nearest grocery store, supermarket, gas station, convenience store, and other necessary small businesses? This largely affects the convenience of your life here. So, ask the agent or search on the map for true and clear answers.
Also, some communities offer swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, and other facilities. Check if there’s any facility that you fancy.
FAQs
At first when airplanes were newly created, a fly-in could be seen as an airshow where aircrafts developers and owners would show the public the performance of their products. It was for commercial or technical purposes.
Later, a fly-in is considered as a gathering, competition, or meeting about aircrafts depending of the host’s intention. But whoever hosts it, it’s always for recreational and social use.
It can be formal or causual, public or private, massive or small. But it must be pre-arranged, filed, and approved especially when attandants need to fly to the airport or field.
Some companies will hire people and ask them to work far away from their current location, normally in remote areas. Employees will get to the workplace and go home when weekends or holidays come. The transportation will be flying and the flights are provided or covered by the company.
When employees are on duty, they will all live in the houses that companies provide. And the communities where these houses are called fly-in fly-out communities. This suggests that their main transportation.
