July 1st

[Jamie D]

Anyone planning to go to the field on Friday?

[wildblue30]

I received an e-mail from Brian Gray last night.

[I just edited my post to remove it since he has made a new post on this forum.]

[the-mailman]

Unfortunately, unless the lease on the field is renewed today we will no longer have permission to use the site. It will also no longer be a MAAC sanctioned field and no longer have Transport Canada exemptions.

You must have been missed in Brian's email that he sent out last night.

Here's what he sent.

Leasing of Shannon Park

As everyone is aware, Shannon Park is our prime flying location for HEFA. We’ve been able to enjoy and to lease the field and have flown very responsibly under the MAAC umbrella. Lease agreements have been in place for years with multiple 6-month extensions. Renewals have often been "just in time" for our continued use of the field. For this cycle, our current lease expires June 30. Your directors have been coordinating for a renewal for weeks but this request has not yet been approved. While there is still time for a renewal, we wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of this issue.

As we all know, permission from the landowner is a cornerstone for MAAC approval. Unless we are able to secure approval tomorrow, then we will NOT be flying with HEFA / MAAC coverage. Participating in any flying activities WITHOUT this approval in-place will be without the support of MAAC or HEFA and it’s Directors. The Transport Canada exceptions, specific to MAAC fields, will not be in-place either. There are many online references on the Transport Canada requirements including this page: https://tc.canada.ca/en/aviation/drone- ... ly-legally.

Without approval in-place, HEFA directors will also be de-registering the Shannon Park field from the MAAC database. This can be re-registered if required conditions are met.

Again, we could receive approval tomorrow in which case there are no issues with our continued use of the Shannon Park. You will certainly be informed if there is a change in status. That said, for now, please consider this email as notification that the Shannon Park field is no longer an approved flying site by MAAC or HEFA or the HEFA Directors, effective June 30 at 9pm. All flying under the HEFA / MAAC umbrella is to be suspended until further notice.

Short-Term Options for RC Flights

HEFA still maintains approval for flying at Lawrencetown (slope) and Porter’s Lake. These remain good options for our club.

In addition, there are several other local clubs which would welcome HEFA members.

· Shearwater RC Flyers fly at the decommissioned runway on weekends when there are no helicopter flights (while being aware of local flights too). Their website is https://shearwaterflyers.proboards.com/posts/recent. Shearwater has a $5 drop-in fee per day, to the maximum of a membership ($45 for civilian, $35 for military)

· ASRCM is located in the Shubenacadie area. https://www.asrcm.ns.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/Y ... ion=recent

· AVON is located outside of Windsor. http://www.avonflyers.ns.ca/cgi-bin/For ... ion=recent

Future Considerations

Your HEFA Directors will continue to work with the Shannon Park landowner to try and reach an agreement for our club’s continued use of this field.

Considerations for other fields in HRM have been reviewed, mostly at a high level, and this effort could be restarted. This will require a larger committee to be organized for the optimal results.

We recognize that this is not the news that you want to hear, especially rolling into a nice long weekend.

Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns to any of the HEFA Directors.

Sincerely,

Brian Gray
Chris Hodgkinson
John Liddard
Joshua Mardling
Rhoady Hickey
Gary Foster

[bdg]

Thanks Bruce. Yeah - sadly not the situation that we had planned for / expected. We'd remained hopeful for even a short extension but unfortunately this did not come to fruition. I'd added a new post in the "HEFA News & Notes" section to indicate this change.

Hopefully this is all temporary and we will be back to flying shortly.... the lease agreement is currently with the lawyers who I assume are evaluating risks.

Brian

[the-mailman]

We should have squatters rights by now. lol

[bdg]

Not sure about squatters rights, Bruce - lol.... but as of now, we are approved to continue to use the Shannon Park facility. See posting in "HEFA News"

Be safe.

Brian

[JohnOSullivan]

Well done Directors!
I got the good news about 11.00am and headed for Shannon and found I was alone. I had my new MAYFLY 3 2m electric sailplane ready for its maiden flight. All went well with a 11 minute flight with no obvious thermal activity. Bob turned up too.
Yesterday, Chris Dean and I went to Lawrencetown after lunch. Forecast was 12 to 20 kph, but turned out to be 25 to 35 kph - pretty windy.
I had intended to maiden my new MAYFLY, but settled for my older MAYFLY, which even without ballast weathered the high winds very well.

Since the photo of the MAYFLY 3 I have added a Maple Leaf in the white panel making a Canadian flag as it was maidened on Canada Day.