Airbus duo by Rez Manzoori (L) and Steve Kemp who flew his Emirates A380 for the first time at Llandudno.

As the general public revelled in what was admittedly, a fantastic weeks weather (including the hottest October day ever recorded in England!) your scribe was scratching his head with the problem of what to do for the best regarding the weekend event - for with the hot temperatures and clear blue skies came high pressure and calm conditions.  Great for golf, but not for PSS!  By Friday morning I had discussed our options with a few of the usual suspects and reluctantly the Saturdays Fly-For-Fun event was formally cancelled, with notifications going up on the web-site and online forums.  Sundays conditions still looked a little marginal, but with a 9-14mph wind forecast from the SSW we elected to run the event one day only.  This proved to be the right decision, Saturdays flying (for those that were already there for the weekend) was reportedly suited to electric or very light slope only, and come Sunday, the winds had indeed improved for the better, although the blue skies were swapped for showery overcast ones!

Steve Kemp also had some new models on show, not least in the shape of the Airbus A380, twinned with Rez Manzoori's airframe from the Windrider stable.  Steve's model was finished very nicely in the colours of Emirates,  and the two Airbus looked great together in the static photoshoot before lunch. (Title image)  Later in the day Steve would successfully maiden the A380, and showing confidence in the model from the off, he was soon flying formation passes with Rez's Virgin Atlantic A380.  Excellent stuff lads!  Steve had a couple of great flights with his new model and was clearly chuffed to beans with the results! 

Having impressed us all earlier in the year with his 11.5" span FW 'Flitzer', John Hey was again on site for more 'Peanut Scale' PSS flying and it was obvious that this new division of PSS was capturing the imagination of other PSSA members.

Matt Jones (reknowned for his usually large scale O/D PSS models) unveiled his DeHavilland Comet, built for PSS from the Skyleader Plan (Jetex) and finished beautifully in the RAES colourscheme.   At 24" span with an AUW of just 4.8oz, she had a calculated wing loading of 9.4oz/sq ft.  The model was test flown with great success at this event, particularly later on in the stronger lift where it flew very stably.  Modelling at this scale will not suit everyones taste and it requires micro radio gear, but it does have its advantages (you could fit over 100 fully rigged models into a Ford Fiesta, for example) - perhaps we will get to see more Peanut Scale models next year??

In contrast, at the other end of the spectrum, Rez Manzoori unveiled his latest creation, a mighty Grumman Avenger, spanning an impressive 82" and weighing in at 14lbs giving this ex-power model a wing loading of 32oz/sq ft.  The high wing loading combined with a little uncertainty on the required centre of gravity position led to a few pre-flight nerves in the conditions as they were.  But later in the day with the winds settled at 25mph and having flown my Sea Fury for some time to get the feel for a heavy warbird on the slope, Rez was ready to go...

He needn't have worried - from launch the Avenger immediately showed its gentle-giant character on the slope, it climbed away, steady as a rock, slowly building speed into the cruise.  Once settled there, the model tanked along at a fair old pace, a characteristic of the all-up-weight and wing-loading, but it was graceful and smooth with it, all very scale like and impressive.  It carried so much energy that the first landing attempt on the short, wet grass saw the model do a series of gentle touch and goes before heading back out over the edge, it would not stop flying!  Rez enjoyed a 30 minute maiden flight which included some graceful aerobatics towards the end as the envelope was explored prior to completing a safe landing.  The 14lb Avenger is just another example of a really successful, heavy weight PSS machine producing smooth, scale flying characteristics, and in comparison to the 11.5" Flitzer, flown successfully on the same slope on the same day, shows vividly the vast scope that this division of slope soaring has to offer.

The ability to walk the short distance to the car park at this most favoured SW slope always maximises the number of models seen in action, as pilots are able to easily carry everything you travel with to the slope as some point during the day.  Such was the case with Matt Jones, who having already flown his Hawk, Hunter and Comet, later in the day rigged and flew his ever popular 72" span Avro Vulcan, which always impresses whenever its flown. 

By mid afternoon, the pilots voting slips were collected and counted.  A bottle of wine was awarded to the winner in each category, the results were as follows;