01 Oct 97 22:10, Rich Lockyer was yackin' to Ian Macaulay and said:
 IM>> I was thinking along the lines of 2
 IM>> inches mixed with shale.
 RL> Can you get it smooth enough?  How big are the slabs you're
 RL> pulling out of the mine?
The slabs are anywhere from dust to big as a tractor can lift.
 RL> Ya... if you could get some new ones that are wide enough, they'd
 RL> make a great semi-portable strip.
They wouldn't really be portable, they weigh in at over a thousand as a 
guesstimate, they are heavy.
 RL> I wasn't thinking about using a road paver... I was thinking more
 RL> along the lines of bringing in a few dump truck loads of cold
 RL> patch.  It's not as strong and won't last as long as a hot-laid
 RL> surface, but strength really isn't an issue as long as you're not
 RL> putting anything heavier than a person on it.
Dump trucks would sink as well. and I still have to use the land as a path to 
the back.  Here picture this, I own a piece of land that is 200 foot wide, 
2000 foot deep.  frontage is 200 ft.  The land starts off as 600 foot of 
forest with my house and shop in the middle of it.  Then we start dropping 14 
foot into the swamp. That is also 800 foot give or take.  I have dredged a 
strip 10foot in from the property line on one side the full 800 feet and 
ranging from 50 to 25 feetin width. I took the muck etc and dumped it on the 
undredged side.  Then I bulldozed that into a soft causeway.  There is still 
some real swamp, bog whatever where I didn't have enough fill.  Behind the 
swamp area the land rises 25 foot in about 400 foot and then takes 200 more 
to drop back to about 14 foot above the waterline in the swamp.  The peak of 
this knowle is on my property but starts and ends on the neighbours lots.  
Have you ever heard of a drumlin?
The front of my property is on the leading edge of one of thesee and the back 
of my property is the middle of another,  The drumlins run perpendicular to 
my piece of earth.  Now why was i telling you all that???
 RL> I'm just a bit cautious of grass fields... I have a hard enough
 RL> time landing a taildragger on a hard runway without nosing over.
 RL> I've seen grass fields destroy retractable landing gear.
And that is the type of craft that I like the best,  When I picture me flying 
(rc that is) I always imagine a taildraggin biplane.
 RL> Seriously, I've seen control line carrier clubs that only built
 RL> the boat from the waterline up on dry land.  I didn't mean a
 RL> scale MODEL of a carrier... just a flight deck.  Perhaps
 RL> something similar to a hi-start for launch.  The arresting system
Now theres another concept!!! I could build a runway out of Cedar plank.
I'll have to price that one out.  $675/thousand BD feet so If I got that 
right it would be 11900$ to do 800x20 foot in decking.  I guess that I'll 
pass on that one too:-)
Life is so hard,  :-)
allabes
Ian Macaulay
--- GoldED 2.40.P0720
---------------