To avoid nails working loose and raising their heads to snag lines dragged over them during inflations, I have seen carpets secured with rebar bent into shape of large “staples“. Their top portion is less likely to snag lines.

One could make them with a flatter top, or buy ready-made ones with rounded top: Home Depot or Amazon. They may be easier to drive in, by soaking the ground beforehand.

Related topic: Cost-Effective Surfacing of the LZ.

I am 100% against it. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Winter is around the corner, we’re about to get rain, and every year the grass comes back to lush and green. If you lay out carpet, not only is it at risk of being blown away by the 70-80mph North winds we’re going to get, but it will prevent the grass underneath it from coming back. It will look like garbage, especially if nobody takes it upon themselves to fix it. It’s a huge hassle. The Crestline launch carpet was maintained by Jeremy and the Kooks before he moved. He did a great job staying on top of it. Now there are others who try their best to keep it in top shape, but that’s difficult to do if the persons don’t have the time, or aren’t around to keep it looking nice. It’s heavy, it’s a lot of maintenance, and getting rid of it when it starts looking garbage-like is hard work. There’s very few people who volunteer to get stuff done around the club, so although we have about 300 members, it’s always the same 10 people who are left to get things done around here. NO to the carpet.

Thanks for asking Marcello.

While I completely understand why PGs want carpet and I have utilized it plenty on Crestline launch to keep my wing clean while setting up, it soon became apparent that as the UV and weather did its damage I now find that anything I lay down on it is completely covered in the loose carpet fibers. I doubt it’s very heathy to breathe in or for the environment in general.
I would personally do away with all the carpet as I also find it an eye sore. But then I only fly HGs. Is there a better alternative?

Mark, we’ve been over this multiple times. Artificial turf is very expensive, slippery when damp, and if not installed correctly becomes a the same trip hazard or missile hazard in the winds as carpet.
The grass was doing fine until we hit temps over 100 degrees and that was a month before we started experiencing water shortages. It happens every year, our LZ is in the high desert! The weed treatments did not cause this, during the entire spring we had a mostly weed free LZ.
I will offer this alternative for the PGs, I think it will work… We could permanently Astro Turf the PG corner of the LZ. Yes, it will be expensive… BUT… it would allow us to reduce the foot print of sprinklers that would save water for the rest of the LZ. It would give the PG kiting area a ‘clean’ lay down area year round. The cons are, it’s expensive and the PGs would have to accept the risk that it becomes a thermal trigger in the warmer months. Just a possibility. I also think we should permanently Astro turf the first 20 ft around the entire Pavilion. It’s a high traffic area and we would again be able to reduce the footprint of sprinklers plus I wouldn’t have to get too close with the lawnmower while people might be seated inside.

Luke, Mario and I were replying to Marcello’s post about the PG area and CSS launch area. Not the entire LZ. you say Astro turf costs to much then in the next sentence you come up with a new idea… Hey lets use astro-turf for the PG area. :)

now back to the i thought we were getting water from the pond question ???

And Yes, we are still getting water from the Pond. That is the only source of water for the irrigation system. There have been supply problems that have prevented the Pond to be able to fill up fast enough or recover from each irrigation cycle. We are doing our best to solve those issues.

Thanks Luke…. and like David said>>> Sounds like a good idea..