Hyner | Soaringroadtrip

It turned out to be a nice day. We flew at about 2:45. I'd say Steve was over 400+? I was over by 150ft. We both flew about 15-20 minutes. The wind shut off and we had to come down. There was a few thermals over the highway and lz field that kept us soaring a little longer. I bought all the bread, milk and toilet paper on the way home that I could possibly stuff in the car and tie on the glider rack in prep for the big storm ;) Anybody have a snowmobile with a glider rack? Paging Spoons...Spoons! Let's fly soon!

Aron

12/10/2020

Unofficial report: We had a pretty nice day at Hyner today...not bad to have 7 in the air in December, T-Bone launched first at around 11 and got over an hour of airtime. I went 2nd and had say a 20 minute flight. Wind was getting lighter as the day went on making soaring more challenging, and causing some sledders.
Will H., Dennis, Sam and Chuck were next off. Steve launched later and the sun came out and blessed him with the flight of the day with 1:45!
I'm not sure but there may have been more HG attempts to try again after Steve was in the air...
Thanks to Will P., Pat and Julie for being the support crew!
Let's fly soon!
Aron

11/29/2020

The wind went slack in the afternoon at Hyner. Found some lift at the point but couldn't find enough of it to stay up.
Steve

11/21/2020

Great flying at Hyner today! Tom B led the charge. Dennis, Sam, Chuck B, and Will P all soared. And then in another league, pg Steve launched early and landed late.

04/19/2021

It was a changeable day. It was blowing in, then not, then spritzing raindrops, then little teasing rays of sunshine. T-Bone was in the air early say 1:45PM when Julie and I were driving up to launch. The rest of the gang setup and launched after 4:15PM since it was flag snapping strong wind. I'm on launch at 4PM and the wind quits as the sun pokes out. At 4:15 it is launchable after doing a dance between W and NW launch areas back and forth...so I danced over and off the NW one without putting the glider down. I worked to get like 25 over. Will P. Was next off, then Sam P. then eventually Dennis P. once the wind turned back on. Will P. was up say 75 over working it over the spine and over toward the point. Next came the landings, mine was uneventful to the W into a 5mph headwind. Will came in next to the W and then the wind switched on him. Sam comes in with his Alpha to the W for the slowest most graceful "dune goon" style landing...it was blowing hard at his 40 ft height and he is moving forward just above parked speed, the gradient wasn't bad and he comes almost straight down like an elevator and had a soft 2 stepper. Dennis comes in last and it seems like not much wind...go figure. The max airtime was like 10 minutes at best. Probably Will P. could have done more but the air was punchy and not so much fun.

We broke no aluminum, didn't get too wet.

The birds soaring made us look like fools...there were 30 soaring around the cell tower after we all landed.

Thanks to Julie and Mike for helping us get setup and launch.

All in all it was still a good time at Hyner.

Aron

5/6/2021

Tom, Sam, and I flew. Tom flew early and got 1K over in some very bouncy air. I launched at 6:30 into some really smooth air.
The Hyner launch and landing look great. The camping field has been cut. Looking forward to seeing everyone later this month.

Steve

5/31/21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOIiEDcHQRc

From what I hear the Thursday flying didn't really happen until 6 pm, with earlier flights being slapped around, but then it went magic. Kudos to those who pulled it off. It must have been pretty good for they stuck through a rainy friday to greet the less hardy folks showing up after the rain.
Got up there saturday to find Jim, Bunk, Bob and Cookie, Eddie there. Was excited to finally meet Chris and Carey Boland, who perfectly fit into the Hyner gestalt. Dave Bodner and JB joined soon after. Overcast, and though the drizzles of Lock Haven rarely reached that far into the mountains there was a psychological feeling of dampness to the dry grass. Most of us ended up at Socky's for dinner. The fact that I even mention that shows how riveting the flying scene was at this point.
None of the pilots went up to launch, but Two-town was encamped at Hyner Run, and Emily went up with her boyfriend, and came down with a fiance'. Congratulations Emily!
Sunday I hear no reports of anyone bothering to go up to launch. Aron arrived, couldn't face camping next to the remains of his wall, which had been subject to legalized vandalism by someone who had taken out a permit to harvest stone. I could say more but don't like the cloud of rage that consumes me when I think about it. I have to feel that if Forestry had known the details they wouldn't have issued that permit. They've been informed it resulted in the destruction of a beautiful campsite. Okay, I'm backing out of that topic.
The Bolands were leaving sunday, and I returned to find folks ready for dinner and we headed down to Lock Haven for a mexican dinner with Rocco, who had surfaced as intended. Another reflecting on flying that I feel called upon to mention that. He was moving to another house, and had brought the contents of half his liquor cabinet that people had left after parties and he needed to dispose of. We spit most of it on the fire. It was fun making the rocks glow blue.
Everyone was looking forward to Monday. The sun came out, flowers bobbed in the breeze, everything had that glow that reminded us why we actually love the place. Headed up late morning to find it strong and crossing from the north, but it would die down with long launchable cycles between the two rocks. I was the first to launch a bit before 1 pm, and immediately felt like I was rotor surfing. Sharp edges and potholes. Got away from the ridge but still got kicked around enough that I couldn't hold a straight line on final approach.
Called up and relayed my experiences to Jim, who naturally decided to try his tandem falcon. He went out along the spine and caught a thermal that took him above launch, but didn't like being carried away from the LZ in that wind, so abandoned it to come land through the expanse of potholes and air cannon. Aron launched next and sort of enjoyed being roughhoused. As I broke down camp the flag was clearly cross and nobody launched. Looking forward to hearing what happened later in the day.
It was a weekend of contrasts. I don't regret at all making the trip to sit around a fire with friends under an overcast sky. Gave me time to explore the road that Joe Gorrie cut into the back 40, and that others have labored to improve. There's some nice campsites back there, and I see niches for more. So when great weather returns we'll have places to put visitors, as I foresee a packed July 4 weekend.
Brian Vant-Hull

6/6/21

Hyner was flyable all day long. A bit rowdy early but then things mellowed. Bill and I both got three flights in. We found some friendly folks to drive our vehicles down.

Here's a link to the afternoon flight just boating around in the SW wind...

https://ayvri.com/scene/e9k4nvr7jo/ckpmiltgh00013a6i637rhvet

Let's fly soon!

Steve

7/1/21

It was sunny and hot...big puffy clouds. Bunkhouse and Julie launched me slightly after 12:00 noon. I was flying the Liberty 158.
The flight was about 11 minutes and say 50' over, not impressive stats but it sure was exciting.
There was lots of lift right after launching but also lots and lots of sink...more sink than I ever encountered before on the way to the lz...then about 15 minutes after I landed it began raining.
I left the ridge with 1000 ft. Pulled the VG on full and headed out. Over the house by the bridge I was at like 800 ft...then down down down all the way.
The sink made me pretty concerned that I wasn't going to make it over the tracks on my turn from base to final.
Then on final just before touching down was rocked by a thermal in the lz. I was kissing the ground! Glad to be down!
Amazing how quick conditions can change with extreme heat and moisture! Later in the day the t-storms were wild.
Big thanks to Bunkhouse and Julie.
After a needed break at Sockey's we went back uptop to try and help Bunkhouse fly...when we rode up it was looking flyable. Soon after arriving back uptop it was starting to look grim with thunderstorm activity coming from the SW, so Bunkhouse decided to pack up, Good thing because it stormed hard.
Then later in the day we sipped some wine under Bunk's awning in the rain, ate olives, met up with Bob and Cook after they rolled in...
What a great day at Hyner!
Aron

07/19/21

Weather was changeable with big cumulus clouds, some turning thunderous. Flag uptop was snapping around 2:30 then calming a bit by 3:30 but still blowing in. It seemed like localized weather with the big clouds influence on the wind speed and direction. Rumble of thunder to the NE and that cloud was blowing away over the back...so I got in the air at around 3:15 and had my best ever flight so far at Hyner with just about a half hour and say 800-1000? over...need to review on computer. The thermals were fat enough to turn 360s in over launch. Anyways there was smooth lift all over the place until it shut down. Then it was widespread sink so headed to the lz. I think what shut it down was another big dark beast cloud near the village of Hyner...and moving in on us...it was good to have gotten down before that beast came over the lz.

Following the beast cloud departure, Steve did a hike and fly over to the pipeline and made it to the Hyner lz with success! Way to go Steve!

Let's fly soon!

Aron

7/26/21

We flew, some conquered, others were slain by sink.
T-Bone must have launched soon after after 1pm. He was flying around as we drove up at around 1:45. He probably had around a 45 minute flight...don't know other stats.
Aron flew next with a 6 minute sledder around 4:15. Had a fairly good cycle and blew it...trouble zipping in harness got distracted and went too far out.
Will flew soon after Aron and scratched hard eeking out something like 75 over and 28 minutes! And boy did he work to get that!
When Aron landed the lz was pretty rowdy. The staging area N of the tracks had some abrupt sink pockets. On final an abrupt sink pocket rattled things. Trying for a better harder flare Aron climbed higher on the DTs, just about touching feet down got lifted off again, but then it settled in as the flare gently increased higher...no landing is ever the same as Will says! It worked ok. Nothing broken!
Not sure why we didn't get alot higher today. Here attached was the skew-t I looked at. As Bob B. says, the big H high pressure was sort of above us...maybe that was it. Just looking at it while there the big puffy clouds appeared to have a base of say 4000.
Let's fly soon!
Aron

8/2/21

It was NW uptop. We used the path over the rocks for a NW launch. There were times it was N cross, so we waited for a lull in the wind and some sun brought light thermals up that gave us enough NW direction to launch safely.
Flights were short. Aron went first and it was a true dogger.
Spinner flew and got a few passes and sniffed out a little lift making it an extendo.
The really neat thing about the day was to learn that Spinner was taken to Hyner as a kid by his father to see a HG competition way back when...and today he got to bring his father and his brother to see him fly there decades later!
Thanks to Julie for helping out and launching us!
Let's fly soon!
Aron

8/5/21

It was two sled rides for each of us. Very light wind and smooth air. Aron

8/24/21

We got 6 sled rides at Hyner this afternoon! Fun day but 5 minute flights!

6 sled rides were had. Dennis, G-man, Sam, Will, Mike with PG, Aron

I think I'm gonna have to get a PG for light days...and go to Hammondsport and fly till dark to get any airtime.

Aron

9/6/21

Monday morning I think it was Karen, Tim M., Brian V. And Dave B. Who flew and soared.
It was blown out from about 1:30 to 6PM.
Aron got one in after it settled a bit right about 6:00.
Somebody said "evening magic" but 6mph gusting to 15mph in front of the wall made me think of Black Magic Woman...Santana! And it was! Good thing to have the Liberty 158 today to penetrate the higher wind up there.
So the ride lasted 31 minutes and was work. Often was parked and still rising even out from launch past the tree line. One time I flew back over the outhouses uptop and slow penetration back out, I looked down at the flag and it was snapping and bowing, but then that gust fell off. Overall not terribly bumpy, but a few tosses here and there. Higest was 500 over. Flew my upwind along the mountain then over the Hyner 4 way intersection in the town, then back to the field with height to burn yet in a 360, then a DBF and west landing on the wheels in the wet dew covered grass...absolutely no wind down in the lz. Sun had set on the field.
Too tired to go home so we stayed another night and the campfire was nice and raucous.
Wanton disregard for proper fire tending from all around. Much poor form was displayed and "Precious 2" was found, a 6 ft stick used with lots of gibes from the audience of other would be fire tenders! Many took a turn with "Precious 2".
Let's fly soon!
Aron

1/6/22

On setting up it was sunny, then became overcast with little sun at 3pm.
Julie wire crewed today. Saw one other car up at launch but nobody was around.
Hardly any wind at 3pm, like 3 -4mph varying from SW to NW.
It was looking like a sledder day so I decided to fly without vario, since down was guaranteed :)
That was nice with no vario. JB had had advised to fly with no vario, so I gave it a try. In the air I felt some light uplift, then sink, then uplift and so on. Nothing enough to really turn in.
I liked flying without the crutch and the beeping noise. It was confidence inspiring to just totally look at the whole experience of flying visually with no glancing over at an altitude number.
For a January flight I'm totally happy with a 6 minute flight trying something new.
Yeah it is cold, but hell 6 minutes is bearable...a trip to the mailbox or out to get more firewood equates to that...
The reward was a Voodoo Ranger IPA and some 8.99 red wine...what a day at Hyner inspired!
Let's fly soon!
Aron