Aerotow in New York

[John Gallagher]

Who's going to the Pine Island Aerotow event? I don't have a scale glider (don't think that a DAW 1-26 counts) but would like to attend the event.

[Ben Diss]

You don't need a scale glider to come out and have fun! Bring what you have and we'll get it in the air! It's a big field. I'm sure we could even string out a winch.

BTW, I got a call from Bob Crane today. You may remember that Bob wrote the R/C Glider column for Flying Models back in the early 80's. He's getting back into gliders and will be stopping by to see what's up in the scale glider community.

Should be plenty of fun!

-Ben

[scalesoar]

This category needs some stimulus with only 8 posts. Yikes.

I will be at Pine Island with some neat giant sale stuff. What I will bring to fly is a 1/3 scale Discus 2b with dumpable water ballast. This five meter ship is my favorite right after the 6 meter DG-800s I flew last season. The neat thing about this plane is that is easy to set up with the plug in electronics, simple to fly with no flaps, and it will turn on a wing tip with it's scale polyhedral wing.

I was hoping to bring one of the all molded HKM Nimbus 6.6 meter planes just in, but they are all sold and need to be boxed up and sent out, unless I can talk Hans into picking his up at Pine Island. Other than that i may bring a few other big scale planes for guys to see from my shop, not to mention my Pegasus tow plane. I know Joe Enhui is planning on coming with his 8 meter ASW-22, that should get some attention.
Best,
John D.

[scalesoar]

Looks like I may bring the HKM 6.6 meter all molded Nimbus to Pine Island after all. I am cordinating a delivery at the meet, so I might have one there Saturday for a while.
John D.

[Ben Diss]

I was hoping you'd bring one. I can't wait to see it!

[Ben Diss]

Rich and I went to the field last weekend and checked out all the equipment. Everything worked great! Rich wanted to get a little practice towing, but all I could find was lift with my ASW-27 and so only let him pull me once!

In case anyone is looking for hotels, here's a list from Mapquest:

Back Track Inn (5.3 miles)
92 Route 284
Unionville, NY
845-726-3956

Warwick Motel (6.4 miles)
1 Overlook Dr
Warwick, NY
845-986-4822

Great Gorge Village Hotel (6.8 miles)
Highway 94
Vernon, NJ
973-827-2222

Appalachian Motel (8.0 miles)
367 State Rt 94
Vernon, NJ
973-764-6070

Days Inn (8.4 miles)
Route 17M
New Hampton, NY
845-374-2411

Global Budget Inns of America (8.4 miles)
Route 17M
New Hampton, NY
845-374-3020

Mapquest's list of motels (http://yp.mapquest.com/main.adp?_dirsc=1&_dirsmax=18&_dirstabs=10&_direxpand=&_dirsview=distance&_diraction=search&_dircity=Pine%20Island&_dirstate=NY&_dirlat=412978&_dirlong=%2d744597&_dirzip=&_dirmyaddr=&_dircat=701101&_dirnamesearch=hotel&_dirreferer=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2emapquest%2ecom%2f&_diraddress=&_dirdma=16)

-Ben

[scalesoar]

My Pegasus tug is on channel 57, i will be bringing it. Weather is looking better, calling now for partly cloudy on Sat.
Think positive.
John D.

[Ben Diss]

It's Sat morning at 9 AM. I'm sitting at the field watching my wind meter. Right now it's blowing 15 mph, gusting to 20 mph. Not good.

The forecast for tomorrow looks great. The wind is supposed to die down, the sun will be shining and hopefully the thermal gods will be smiling. I
suggest that for anyone planning to attend, that tomorrow will be a better day. Hope to see you then.

We'll stick around for a few hours just in case some brave soul ventures out, but it's doubtful that we'll do any flying today.

-Ben

[Ben Diss]

Just got back from the field. What a day we had. About a dozen folks showed up and we flew all day. Tomorrow looks to be wonderful with very little wind and clear skies. Should make for boomer thermals. Check out Intelicast's wind forecast for Pine Island (http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USLocalStd.asp?loc=usnyct20317&seg=LocalWeather&prodgrp=Forecasts&product=WINDcast&prodnav=d1_18&pid=none).

If you can make it on Sunday, I'd encourage you to come out and fly. Joe brought his 7M Nimbus today and will be returning on Sunday. John has several all molded beauties to drool over. We'll have three tugs available so we should have plenty of fun.

-Ben

[scalesoar]

It's 8:30 Sunday and I just got settled after unloading from my trip to the Pine Island event.
Kudos to Ben Diss and Richard Berhends for hosting their first aerotow at the wonderful Pine Island site. Actually acres upon acres of manicured sod stretch out in all directions. Very windy on Saturday, but when Joe Enhui and I showed up and put our planes together the event started. Two tugs with slippery symetrycal airfoils fired up, and we were off and towing. Taking off into the wind proved very doable and we had several die hards joining us by mid afternoon.
Sunday brought about 25 scale sailplanes to the venue and more pilots, as the day turned out to be a great one. no clouds, but CATs (Clear Air Thermals) were abundant, and many of us specked out to the limits of vision.
This site wil prove, I think, to be very attractive to the Northeast region, and brought atendees from NYC, Long Island, New Jersey, Conecticutt, Philadelphia, and Central PA.
Thanks again guys, for the effort and great field.
John Derstine