Simon Cocker and Sue Lee fly the mighty 110" span BAC Canberra high above Hells Mouth Bay.

It made a refreshing change as event organiser to see a stable, favourable forecast on the run up to this weekend Fly-In.  We had been promised 20mph SW and W winds throughout the weekend with scattered cloud and sunny spells, it looked like ideal PSS conditions!  I’m glad to report this all proved accurate – and I’ll be honest, the long journey to the Lleyn Peninsula was made all the easier with the confidence gained from what we had seen that week in preparation on the web.

Rez Manzoori and I arrived at the Llanbedrog meeting point for 9:45am, and a quick check on XC weather (via Rez’s smart-phone) confirmed that a SW wind was being measured real-time at the local weather station.  This made the choice of slope for the day easy, we would be using the Lleyn MAC’s most favoured SW slope at ‘Dorothy’s Farm’ on Mynydd Cilan, and we placed a notice and map on the back of the phone box in the car park to instruct any late arrivals.  As it was, there was already a group of half a dozen or so modellers at the meeting point by 10am so shortly after we were on our way in convoy through Abersoch to the chosen location.

The site at Dorothy’s Farm offers a magnificent coastal slope with huge lifting potential and a gently undulating grass covered landing zone - making it a perfect site for flying PSS models of all types.  However, the 10 minute walk to the slope from the car, via a pair of weathered farmyard gates and a stone wall stile means you are limited to how many models you can physically transport to the edge, unless you are happy to do more walking than flying!  We rigged what airframes we could carry in a single trip and by 11:15am the 7 modellers were settling into a makeshift pits area with 15 PSS models to play with.

We flew on without incident until gone 6pm by which time I think we had all had enough sun, if not enough soaring!  At 8pm we met up in The Ship Inn at Llanbedrog where we enjoyed a hearty meal and a couple of beers with a group of pilots and their partners celebrating Tim Mackey’s 60^th Birthday – many congrats Tim from us all at the PSSA!

On Sunday morning we again met up at the Londis Car Park in Llanbedrog at 10am where, with a Westerly wind as forecast we decided to fly at a new site to the PSSA, just further up the coast from the previous days SW site.   Having been led by a local farmer to the exact place to park our cars within the farmyard, and having paid the agreed £2 per car for the privilege (money well spent by the way – this site even offers an indoor WC and sink with clean running water!) we made the very short walk to the coast to find another fantastic cliff top slope and landing zone.  The wind was bang on the Westerly face, blowing 18mph and the weather was stunning with blue skies and high level fluffy clouds.  Clearly we were in for another belter! 

Later on the 3 EPP T-33 Shooting Stars (Nigel Moule, Simon Cocker & Phil Cooke) were flown together until the formation got a little too close and the resultant coming together of 2 of the airframes led to a pair of damaged servo horns on Simons model, leaving him with only one wing with operational flying surfaces and forcing an emergency land out which was performed flawlessly.  The remaining 2 models were flown at length throughout the day, and as at the Llandudno event earlier in the year, some onboard camera footage was taken from them – the size and stability of the T-33 certainly makes it an ideal camera ship!

Having built confidence on his other models, Ron Cooper test flew his Hellcat (Above centre/Right) later in the day.  It was launched into an improving 22mph wind and showed immediate promise, climbing away nicely from the launch.  However very early in the flight Ron appeared to lose all control of the aircraft, and it spiralled into the steep hillside, thankfully in a recoverable position and not into the sea below!  The damage appeared limited to the cowl and topside of the forward fuselage, it will certainly live to see another day soon – Ron’s initial take on the problem following some post flight thought was a binding issue on his Spektrum 2.4GHz Rx.

Simon Cocker again rigged and transported the mighty Canberra to the slope and flew this late in the day – the slope leant itself ideally to low level flying along the ridge and over the sea – again a number of fantastic images were captured in terrific light with various folk manning ‘suitably endowed’ DSLRs.  This model I think got more flying hours on it this weekend than all those combined in its previous life – it really was great to finally see it in action on the slope at a PSSA event.

See the stunning video captured and edited by Rez Manzoori here for a better taste of the flying (sorry about the mid-air shunt with your Hawk Rez! ;-)

All in all this was a memorable weekends flying.  There were no prizes given, indeed no competition was held (I aim to re-instate some form of competitive element at the next event on the Great Orme in October) – instead people just relaxed and flew at will, launching and landing out as and when they pleased in ideal flying conditions throughout the 2 days.  The resounding memory of the event for me will be the ability to fly at any point in the day with any model in such fantastic conditions on the magnificent coastal slopes, it simply was a very relaxing, enjoyable 2 days.  It also made a pleasant change to see so many of the attendees sharing the weekend with partners, not just on the slope each day but particularly on the Saturday evening when we grouped more socially and enjoyed a meal and a few drinks.  Long may that continue!

The next (and final!) PSSA Event of the year is planned on the Great Orme at Llandudno 1^st and 2^nd October 2011.  I hope to see you there.

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