Airparks: Home Is Where the Hangar Is

Unique spots offer pilots coveted chance to live alongside their planes.

Grant Boyd

Wednesday, May 13, 2026 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Zach Vasile

Pecan Plantation, a master-planned development, covers 4,200 acres and consists of two airparks in Texas. [Credit: Gustav Schmiege Photography/Patten Properties]

Key Takeaways:

Residential airparks offer a unique lifestyle, allowing aviators to integrate flying into their daily lives by having their aircraft at home, fostering a strong sense of community among like-minded individuals.
There are over 700 airparks worldwide, predominantly in the United States, showcasing significant diversity in size, amenities, and geographic settings, from vast, amenity-rich developments to secluded, scenic communities.
These communities emphasize shared passion for aviation, mutual support among residents, and often combine flying with diverse recreational opportunities like golf, boating, and various outdoor activities.

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For many, living at a residential airpark with a plane of their own in the hangar is the ultimate aviation goal. Those who live at a fly-in community integrate flying into their daily lives, sharing the spoils of flight with like-minded neighbors.

Ben Sclair has been documenting airparks for more than three decades and followed in the footsteps of his father Dave, who moved the Sclair family to Shady Acres Airport (3B8) in Spanaway, Washington, shortly before creating the Living With Your Plane (livingwithyourplane.com) directory. This resource maps current and anticipated fly-in communities across the country and defines an airpark as a “runway surrounded by residential property where there’s two or more lots with deeded legal access to that common airstrip.”