Quote from Brian Vant-Hull on September 8, 2020, 10:26 am

As far as the flying report goes, if you wanted flying you might have done better elsewhere since hyner launch is turbulent in strong winds.  But the social aspect at hyner is such a gem (this weekend was outstanding) that Tim, who had opined he was too old to camp and so took a hotel 9 miles away, has decided to return with camping equipment so he can roll straight from drinking around the fire into bed.  Below I've pasted a version of what I posted to the Hyner group, edited to clarify inside jokes and the like:

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Ole Lady Hyner surged and sputtered like the old gal she is, but at the fore and aft of tempests pilots launched and most soared.  Friday was the prize winner of the weekend. If you picked your cycle between the tree churning gusts you'd go right up, where surprisingly it was smooth as butter.  Saturday was much the same.  Every day the direction seemed rotated a bit more north than forecast, so sunday's SSW forecast started out looking like the best day of all, but come mid afternoon it suddenly spun on its heels to line up with the cross forecast.  Everyone was breaking down when I saw the flag go limp as a drunkard and stay there.  I stopped pulling and started stuffing.  A few minutes later I was running for the launch without stopping to pee, and two minutes after I launched it turned south again.  Put that with my soaring friday, cloud dive and sunset flight saturday, and I'm happy.

But the best part of course wasn't the flying, it was the company.  Harry and Debbie had come up from Wallaby, and kept us entertained with cantankerous southern humor in a scratchy Florida drawl.  Damn I wish those two didn't live so far away.  The paragliders from NE PA who showed up on Memorial day returned with FOUR MORE PG, including wives, girlfriend, kids.  Seeing as they were putting down roots I took them back to show them all the work Joe was doing to clear out campsites in the shady back 40.  One of them has a brush hog and said he'd come back to help things along.  We've got the land to expand and clearly the will.

Equally good was the Ellenville contingent.   I expected to get a bevy of the experienced pilots, but instead got 4 H2s.  I'll take it!  Apparently nobody had mentioned the phrase "aircraft approach" to them except as hissed intimations in furtive back alleys.  So I told them on their first flight into a new field to do what they felt comfortable with, then we'd work them into aircraft approach in stages.  When I went back down no less than 5 people came up to me outraged at the lack of an aircraft approach.  This is actually H2 heaven: not only does everybody see things and talk about it, but it gets thrashed out over the campfires at night.  I took them back up and had them rotate their figure eights to the side, so they could do a nascent aircraft approach in the form of a base and final once they were low enough.  For their third flight John Bilsky took them under his wing, giving them a full 5-10 minute lecture on AA with the full multi media blitzkrieg of figures scratched in the gravel, sticks to show angles, and musical intros to each section.  They were grinning ear to ear - nobody had talked to them like that about approaches, and they all did well.    Oh yes, they'll be back.  And word of the H2 heaven out west will get around and no doubt Hyner will become a finishing school for Ellenville H2s.

Up until this weekend I was somewhat apprehensive about the club's future with no local instructors left.  No more, baby.  Hyner is roaring back into a second act, and membership is exploding.  Thanks, old girl.  You done us right.

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I'll add that I may have scared folks away with talk of still working on the campsites.  There was room remaining among the trees, but come next year I foresee an additional acre of shady campsites all up for grabs.  I also foresee we'll be filling them with guests rolling through.  So we'll have a trailer park and a campground.  If you can't bear to leave Ellenville in a good forecast, come when it seems light at Ellenville and it will be perfect at Hyner.  But you'll fly regardless, and have the best time around the campfire ever.  Or come when it's SE and we'll go to Jack's and the neverending knife-edge ridge.

 

Quote from barry.morse on September 13, 2020, 10:02 am

Nice report. I flew Hyner once maybe ten or more years ago. They had just gotten a new LZ if memory serves me. It was a sledder day, but still fun.

Curious how much of an aircraft approach is actually used. Is it a full upwind, crosswind, downwind, base, and final?  Is it a clockwise pattern or counterclockwise? Is there a go-around procedure - say, if you get popped on final?

Quote from Brian Vant-Hull on September 15, 2020, 9:42 am

I normally replace the downwind leg with losing altitude beside the field.  I had the H2's switch from doing figure 8s at the end of the field to doing them beside the field, so they just exited that pattern into a base and final.  Then we moved them to losing altitude over the middle of the field which brought them into doing a downwind base and final.  Given the tree pattern all approaches to the current field are right hand turns.

Typically if too high you fly the downwind a bit wider to elongate the base, of if too low cut over to base sooner, though with our new field this may get you landing in the neighbor's grass - which is perfectly fine (we worked together to open up and smooth out the boundary) except that it's a hay field and may or may not be mowed.

Perhaps the bigger question is why people were so insistent they switch from figure 8 to aircraft approach.  Both the old field and new at Hyner are long narrow fields, and are subject to winds that switch direction.  If you are losing altitude at one end you have to make your decision to change direction far ahead of time, at which point it very well may have switched back to the prevailing direction.  Furthermore if in a figure 8 pattern it's not always easy to tell when a pilot is moving into final approach, which can be confusing if a number are coming in to land at nearly the same time.  Aircraft approach has very clear switch to straight lines and increased speed to signal this transition.

If the prevailing wind is strongly established I don't see any problem with figure 8 approaches, but you'll find some communities like the one at Hyner don't consider anything except an aircraft approach to be valid.  It's a useful skill to develop if you don't have it.

Quote from tim.curran on September 18, 2020, 3:20 pm

We had an incredible weekend at Hyner! Myself, Romano, Mr.Kim and Ricardo are all H-2 Pilots and were nothing short of “catered to” by the whole Hyner group. Everything from setting up camp to shuttles to and from launch or LZ.

Fantastic observers Brian, JB and Tom just to name a few.

I learned just as much sitting around the campfire talking with everyone as I did flying.

I want to thank everyone for their great hospitality and willingness to nurture fledgling pilots. I’m going to try to post some pictures and videos.

Quote from Brian Vant-Hull on September 19, 2020, 8:33 am

I had neglected to point out while you were sitting around said fire that there were at least 3 other observers there you hadn't been introduced to, and many more who weren't official observers but full of decades of experience and not shy about sharing it.  The last part is true of any free-flight campfire, but I think what Hyner provides is a tight community who outnumber newcomers by a large enough margin that they feel compelled to pull the newcomers into the group. Dennis Pagen will buttonhole you and spend part of the evening making sure you are flying safely at what he considers to be his home site, and then others will pull you aside to tell you where he's wrong. It's one of the perks of being so isolated.