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Almost the middle of July and I hadn't
been to a single PSS meeting since late 2005 - most had been
cancelled due to adverse weather - generally lack of wind -
but at last there was a glimmering of hope! For the
first time this year the weather forecast for the day of the
event was promising; 15mph SW wind, mostly dry with a few
light showers possible. As far as I was concerned,
that was good enough to warrant the 75 mile drive each way,
so I collected Mike Briggs and off we went.
Arriving at the meeting point, we were
surprised to find that the event was being run by Mike
Kitchen, who had been absent from the PSS scene for some
time. Phil Dean, who had ably managed the H.o.H.
events in the meantime, is emigrating to Scotland so will be
unable to continue doing so, and Mike had graciously stepped
in to fill the gap. The second surprise was that the
wind was at least as good as forecast, and in the right
direction to give us the shortest walk from the car park,
and to one of the best slopes on the site. No time was
lost in assembling the models and setting off, and we were
surprised yet again when we got to the slope - the wind was
30-35mph! Even 10mph is good enough to fly most things
on that slope, so with 30mph you could fly your ballast
weight without a model round it!
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However, the heaviest of my 3
models weighed only 26oz.; so I wasn't entirely sure
that I was going to take all of them home unscathed
at the end of the day. I decided to start with
the NA P-51D
(left),
40" span and 23.5oz, with Mike launching it so I
could keep both hands on the Tx. Straight from
launch it got caught in a gust and blew back before
I could correct it - I put this down to being out of
practice, having been on the slopes only two or
three times this year, and I can't remember when I
last flew in 30mph winds. Fortunately, no real
damage was done; apart from it knocking loads of
pegs off the pegboard, one side of the fin came
adrift from the fuselage - when I can find my cyano
(still in a box somewhere after moving house) I'll
have it fixed in no time. |
Other models were in the air, so not to
be outdone I decided to try my P-40. Now at
only 14.5oz. you may think this was foolish, but the point
is that it's so light that it rarely suffers serious damage
even in the worst landing, and it has flown in 25mph, so I
reckoned the extra 5-10mph shouldn't be too much of a
problem - and it wasn't! With a good, firm throw and a
little down trim (just to be safe) it went off a treat, and
had no difficulty handling the wind. Models do not
need to be heavy to penetrate in good lift, as long as you
can point the nose down a little without losing height.
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By this time we reckoned it
unlikely that many more pilots would turn up, and
Mike Kitchen decided that there were too few of us
to warrant running a formal competition, and that it
was unnecessary to operate the slot system that had
been the norm at H.o.H. events for the last few
years, so flying off the peg was the order for the
day. With only 7 pilots (another one turned up
later) and one frequency clash this promised lots of
flying time for everybody, and so it turned out.
I flew the FJ-4 Fury
(right)
(my heavy model) and the P-51D without incident, and
together with more from the P-40 enjoyed a good
number of flights, pausing only for one light shower
and a hailstorm. July in England - unbeatable! |
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It was very good to see Jean-Luc Belon
and Steve Kemp coming over from Lancashire; you probably
know that it's rare to find anyone prepared to travel away
from their local slopes these days, at least to PSS events,
and I suspect that this is one of the reasons why some of
our favourite meetings have been vanishing from the
calendar, or at least that it's a contributory factor.
It must be something of a disillusionment when you organise
events and no-one turns up, so it's no surprise to me that
the number of meetings in 2006 is well down on what we have
had arranged in recent years. However, the good news
on this front is that the fall-back date that was set in
case this event was cancelled is now definitely set for
another meeting at this excellent venue with slopes for
virtually any wind direction, so let's hope that some of the
absentees will dust off their PSS models and turn out for
it, weather permitting of course.
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Me-110 in action - flown by Jean-Luc Belon |
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Grumman Bearcat by Steve Kemp |
I regret that I was so busy flying, and
taken up with the enjoyment of at long last having 'a grand
day out' not a million miles from Wensleydale, that I didn't
take down any details of anyone else's models, so I cant
tell you very much about them!
Jean-Luc Belon brought his old faithful
Me110 and Valkyrie, and a very nice FW190.
The Valkyrie flew very well in the storming lift, but was
damaged, sadly, on landing. The Me110, as ever,
performed with authority and looked very realistic in the
air, but I don't recall ever seeing the FW190 airborne?
Steve Kemp's Grumman Bearcat also performed
beautifully, as did his Spitfire, but he expressed
some dissatisfaction with his P-51D, although to the
observer it appeared to fly well enough.
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Peter
Walkinshaw has restored his big DH.108 Swallow
(left)
to its former glory, and that too flew as well as it
ever had, though I believe it suffered a little in a
hard landing. No doubt Peter will soon have it
repaired once again. Moving down in scale, and
surprisingly small for him, is Peter's Harrier
GR3 - which behaved immaculately. I don't
believe I have ever seen a model of this aircraft
fly so well. I guess it will not have a very
low wing loading, so the conditions may well have
helped, although I expect Peter's skills on the
sticks played a bigger part. |
Paul Dryden's F-22 Raptor looked
the part and flew very well, obviously comfortable in good
lift. Late in the afternoon all the models still on
the slope were placed together for the cameras, 14 of them
in total. There were a couple more that had been taken
back to the cars, so there were probably 16 or 17 models at
the event. A few years back there would have been 50
or more models at a H.o.H. event, with 30 or so pilots on
the scene. Anyway, those who were there had a good
day, and those who weren't missed a rare opportunity for a
really enjoyable flying session. Don't miss the next
one!
I will close with thanks to Mike Kitchen
for running this event, and to Phil Dean for his endeavours
over the last few years at Horcum.
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