Steve Griffiths reports from Abersoch, a meeting blessed with fantastic sunny weather, a good collection of models - but unfortunately not enough wind! (all photos by Rez Manzoori)

This meeting is an excuse for a long weekend holiday, Friday to Monday.  This makes the long drive less time-critical, and when coming home I’m not faced with a tiring journey after an extended Sunday session on the slopes.  It’s as well that I treat it as a holiday, because this year all the flying I got was three flights with my electric models, the Barracuda and Minibat.  Had it been just an outing to fly, I would have been rather disappointed.  The weather was otherwise good, hot and sunny and really quite suitable for a seaside holiday, and together with the friendly company served to take some of the sting out of not getting any PSS models into the air.

Attendance, as at Bosley Cloud in May, was rather disappointing, with only seven would-be PSS fliers on Saturday, though a more respectable eleven on Sunday.  Whether this was due to the forecast low wind-speeds or the fact that it was a Bank Holiday weekend is open to question, but I suspect that both had some influence.

The slopes in the area are really excellent, and with the smooth air that you get with sea-cliff lift will sustain flight at somewhat lower wind speeds than the more turbulent conditions inland, but 3mph was not enough for anyone to risk it.  The locals flew some floaters with some success, Mike Briggs flew his little electric Tucano (Nigel Hawes’ design,  not  the one  Mike  entered  in the  PSS competition),  while  Phil  Cooke  and  Rez Manzoori treated us to several displays of fast and furious flying with their TwinJets, 10- and 8-cells respectively, with some very respectable formation flying at times.

No awards were made on Saturday, and since Sunday proved equally fruitless, awards were made on the basis of static judging only, the best that could be done in the circumstances.  I’m pleased to report that I got one, the full details being:

Each award recipient also got a bottle of wine, with the first placed also having an excellent little trophy made specially for the occasion by Don Brown of the Lleyn M.A.C. Don also presented every attendee with another hand-crafted memento of the occasion. 

It was a Tucano benefit in the prop class, the only interloper being Andy Blackburn’s Hurricane.  Mike’s Tucano was from the design which he and I produced, while Rez and Phil’s are both from Cyril Carr’s plan.  The other three PSS Tucanos present were mine, one (dual-purpose) from Eric Leadley’s plan, and the last a Vortex Plastics EPP version.  This had a little modification and was very presentable, going to show that good results can be achieved with EPP by the application of good design and a little effort.

Earlier in the year, Don Brown had built a model of a very unusual aircraft, the Chance-Vought XF-5U which, having an almost circular wing, became known as the “Flying Pancake”.  I was looking forwards to seeing it fly, but unfortunately it was no more, having performed according to its nickname and been destroyed.  I neglected to ask whether Don had burnt the remains, which it seems to me would have been a fitting and proverbial end for a pancake; out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Anyway, Don is a very quick builder and had since produced a Cessna Skymaster (properly known in military guise as the O-2), and a Mirage from a Paul Janssens’ plan.  Both were grounded, like all the other PSS models, so I never got to see them fly either.

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