The US Air Force Academy recently opened its artificial turf glider landing strip, which may be one of the largest turf fields in the world.  The 1.35 million square feet is

the equivalent of about 23 NFL football fields or 16 MLS soccer fields.

For the past 50 years or so, gliders had been forced to land on the grass, which was “too bumpy.”

To be fair, the marked landing zones will help student pilots practice more precise landings, a skill they will ultimately need in future aircraft they may go on to fly.  The 2011 purchase of 22 TG-16s, an all fiberglass glider, apparently influenced the need to resurface the field, though planning reportedly began in 2006:

“The findings in the report directly attributed overstress and fatigue on the sailplanes due to the native vegetation in the (landing area),” [Civil Engineer Scott] Bowshot said. “If the Air Force did not invest in an improved landing surface, the new glider fleet would be subject to a premature service life expectancy. The new gliders are fiberglass, which is much more expensive and timely to repair versus the metal TG-10 gliders.”

Unfortunately, the Associated Press inaccurately described the way the gliders land:

The gliders don’t have landing gear but skid to a stop on their bellies, so they can’t use hard-surface runways.

In fact, the new TG-16s do have wheeled landing gear, and they’ve been landing on the asphalt runway.  Some older gliders had metal skids in front of their main wheel, but even they occasionally landed on the asphalt runway.

It’s nice they have a gucci new field.  All the same, there’s something to be said for knowing it’s not that big of a deal to land an aircraft on a real grass field.

With reference to Battleland.