Spring brings to mind images of lush fields and flower carpets; making this season an ideal backdrop to set our aircraft star in. When driving by an airport you might see lush green stripes of grass which remind you “This would make an excellent backdrop for a static display”, when everything else around is brown. That perfect green strip is intended to launch and recover aircraft; you cannot park one there for photography. But that brown area could be your only viable choice – why choose brown instead of something else? Airports tend not to encourage green grass everywhere for several reasons ranging from bird strikes and bug problems to planes mistaking it for landing strips. As illustrated by this photo of our Stinson, you can see in the background is green strip where plane lands while we had to park (this time, however). Yes, you may occasionally come across patches of greenery you can park on but those are exceptions rather than rule; Spring doesn’t guarantee greenness!
