Runway Matting

[Gordon Tarbell]

A year or so ago I saw where several new flying fields (both R/C, and CL) used some kind of thick rubber like matting  material . Anyone have a contact name, company, or ? A local church is looking at a proposal to put in a really nice flying circle on some of its property and this rubber like matting stuff would be a plus in getting the trustees to go along with the proposal. Thanks for any help. Gordon

[Paul Taylor]

Hey Gordon,
I would be a little reluctant to use this type of meterial.
When I fly off a field that is a little rough I have a old conveyor belt that I got from work to use as a run way. It works great, but the fuel will stay on it and it will get slick. I would think that the fuel would attack the rubber over time.
Not sure it will be your best choice.

Just something to think about.

[Bill Hodges]

Sounds like you may be thinking about Geotextile fabric or Geo Matt.  Check out this site.  http://www.geotextile.com/

I have seen Geo Matt used in dirt parking lots on a couple of state forests here in Florida.  It has stood up well to cars, trucks, horse trailers and even horse's hooves.  Somewhere, maybe in Model Aviation, I saw an article about an RC club that used it on their runway with success.

Hope this helps.

Bill Hodges

[Don Curry AMA 267060]

The R/C club I belong to uses a mat that they got from a paper mill. The mill called it dryer felt. It is very tough made up of woven fiber. It does not hold water and the runway is over 10 years old and still in good shape. The material was being changed out for new material and was donated by the mill who would normally have to pay to dispose of it. It is 20' wide and 500' long and very heavy. we had to rent a flatbed truck to haul it from the mill.

Don

[Steve Helmick]

The R/C club over by Port Orchard has something like that for a runway. Randy Powell is nearby, and probably knows something about it. I've actually flown CL there, in a Demo situation. I'm not sure they were very impressed... Steve

[Bill Heher]

The R/C Club up by los Alomos N/M has both a runway and C/L circle that use geo-textile type material on top of a graded  / leveled base of sand / dirt.  Check AMA club listing to find contact info- I have it somewhere- but you can find it on line faster than I can dig it up!

[Gordon Tarbell]

Thanks Guys, I am digging for it now. I want to make this thing happen with or without the matting. Just thought it might be another selling point to the church  trustees.

[Jim Snelson]

Gordon, I sent you an email on the contact info.

Jim Snelson
www.clcentral.com

[Pinecone]

I looked into these for the R/C club where I fly.

The two I came across are Petromat and US Fabrics.  They are non-woven synthetic materials used in road construction. They are actually fairly thin (1mm or so).  The come in rolls 15 feet wide by 300 or so feet long.

http://www.usfabricsinc.com/products/rcaircraftgeotextile.shtml

http://www.geotextile.com/product.aspx?ID=2474

Best is to grade the surface, but you can get by with just hitting it with a weed and grass killer (Round Up) and a long term weed preventer.  Then roll it out and stake down with lawn staples.

You glue overlaps together with an emulsion roof coating.

For CL circles, I have seen articles where they rolled out the material, then every so often, "turned the corner" by cutting out a wedge and gluing.  This gave a circle made up of a number of straight segments.

It can be cut by props during crashes, and needs to be repaired.  You repair by gluing on a patch of the material using the same roof coating as used for the joining of seams.