Determining of the characteristics of the recreational aviation flight fields

Participation in recreational aviation activities and the demand for recreational aviation flight fields are increasing day by day in developed and developing countries. In addition to usage, it comes to the fore that the features of these fields, having social and recreational opportunities, are arranged in a way that allows them to be a part of aviation branches. It is thought that it is crucial to bring together the current situation, aviation regulations, and field studies in Turkey and determine the characteristics that recreational flight areas should have according to expert opinions. The research aims to determine the characteristics that the flight fields of paragliding, model aircraft, and ultralight powered aircraft, which are among the branches of recreational aviation, should have. The research model was determined as a case study, one of the qualitative research methods, and a literature review, interview, and observation study, one of the data collection techniques, was used. Interviews were conducted in two rounds with the experts in the field determined by the criterion-based sampling method with the delphi technique. The interview questions were prepared by taking experts' opinions in their fields. The interviews were conducted with 9 non-motorized aircraft (paraglider and hang glider), 11 model aircraft, and 7 ultralight aircraft experts. In the observation study, 9 different flight areas used actively in Turkey were examined. As a result of a literature review and interviews with 27 field experts, 32 features were revealed for non-motorized aircraft (paraglider and hang glider) flight sites, 23 for model aircraft (model aircraft) 32 for ultralight aircraft flight sites. Features revealed, emergency measures, geographical structure and climatic conditions, safety and security, aviation equipment, flight zone permits, flight zone ownership, means of transportation to the flight site, the physical structure of the flight area, availability of social facilities and availability of recreational opportunities can be sorted as. Keywords: Recreational Aviation, Sports Aviation. Recreation.