The Lleyn MAC PSSA Fly-In – 13th August 2016

 

‘Anne’s place’ on Mynydd Cilan stages our 30th Anniversary visit to the Lleyn Peninsula.

Phil Cooke reports – All photos by the author unless credited.

 

The weekend of 13/14th August 2016 saw us run our annual PSS Fly-In with the Lleyn MAC on the magnificent coastal slopes of the Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales.  This was the fourth flying meet of the season as we continued to actively celebrate our 30th Anniversary since the groups foundation in 1986.

A less than ideal wind forecast still generated a well attended event, a total of 18 pilots travelling with an array of models from all over the UK.  Sunday would be High Pressure dominated, and Saturday proved the better of the two days, with a 20mph Westerly wind greeting us from the outset.   This saw us flying at ‘Anne’s place’ – a picturesque stretch of coastal headland overlooking ‘Hells Mouth Bay’ a few hundred feet below the launch point.

Having met in Llanbedrog to agree the slope in use, we arrived in convoy at 10:30am and hastily set about readying our models.  The sun was out, the warm, Westerly wind was bang on the face and we were set for a fantastic days slope flying at one of our most favoured sites!  Just a short distance from the car park, the pitting area was quickly populated and there were a number of new and exciting models on show.

Peter Garsden was one of the first pilots airborne.  He gave us a taste of what was to follow later in the year by flying his A-4 Skyhawk – completed ahead of our mass build event scheduled for September!  I stopped rigging my models and hastily made my way to the slope with my camera as this was the first time I had seen another Skyhawk flying, and it was going great!  Pete was clearly enjoying himself and the little A-4 looked most convincing darting up and down the slope in its Israeli Airforce colours.  Other pilots quickly followed Pete’s lead.  John Hey had a couple of early sorties with his trusty Jet Provost and his Hawker Hunter, Harry Twist flew his correx Impala and there were a couple of new Spitfires in action – one from Dave Gilder (built from the Cambrian Funfighter kit) and a larger one by Tim Mackey, recently converted from the Jamara .90 I/C ARTF kit.

Tim’s model was flying around beautifully, very stable and solid in the air.  We were all impressed with its performance then blown away by Tim’s demonstration of the sound system he had ‘secretly’ fitted!  The scale effect Merlin engine note and cannon fire was very well received by pilots and spectators alike – brilliant stuff!

Andy Meade utilised the ideal slope conditions to test fly his new Avro Vulcan B2, completed earlier in the year from the SHM plan and finished now with an underslung Blue Steel ‘stand off’ bomb.  Bob Jennings provided a text book launch, the model proved quick and easy to trim and Andy soon had it performing low level passes for the cameras.  There are many versions of the Vulcan flown at nearly all of our events, but this larger scale model (of which there are now 2 on the PSSA circuit) with a span of 72″ and a weight of ~9lbs has real presence and dominates the sky when flown.  I do look forward to the day when we see Andy and Matt Jones fly the pair of these superb scale models together…

Jet Provosts were nearly always airborne it seemed, with Chris Barlow, John Hey, Peter Garsden, Tom Cooke and myself all enjoying numerous flights with our own versions of the type – still going strong after 2 seasons since the last PSSA mass build!   Later in the day Steve McLaren flew his new DH Mosquito built for PSS from the Cloud Models I/C kit.  Steve’s Mosquito build blog can be viewed HERE.  Spanning 54″ and weighing in at just over 4lb, the model flew very well indeed, cruising along at speeds reminiscent of the full-size and it appeared to retain its energy very well during manoeuvres, resulting in a smooth, scale like performance.  Great to see another Mossie on the slopes, I’ve always questioned why we see so few of this type really, its ideally suited to PSS.

Paul Jubb flew his large scale NA Mustang, built for PSS from the YT International power kit, and as per the larger Spitfire of Tim Mackey it performed in a most scale like manner with  a solid ‘sit’ in the cruise and plenty of energy.  We really were spoilt with the perfect conditions at this most favoured site – flying was achieved in a friendly, laid back manner throughout the day until gone 6pm – the only timed structure to the proceedings being a group photocall just after lunch and a short prize giving presentation late afternoon.

Participating pilots were asked to vote for their favourite aircraft in 3 categories, ‘Best Flown Prop’, ‘Best Flown Jet’ and ‘Model of the Event’ and the results at the end of the day were as follows;

Category	Pilot	Model
Best Flown Prop	Tim Mackey	Supermarine Spitfire
Best Flown Jet	Peter Garsden	MD A-4 Skyhawk
Model of the Event	Andy Meade	Avro Vulcan

 

For winning ‘Model of the Event’ with his superb Vulcan, Andy Meade was awarded a BBMF print – signed by all the aircrews and engineers, and in our 30th Anniversary year, took home the coveted ‘Alan Hulme Memorial’ trophy.   Pictured below are prize winners Peter Garsden (below left), Andy Meade and Tim Mackey (below right) – well done to all three! (all photos by Shona Meade)

A huge amount of photos and video footage were captured at this event on the Saturday, so good were the conditions – my photos are linked HERE – and I’ve embedded just one of the many YouTube videos created by Mark Kettle using the ingenious ‘Dragon Cam’™ – many more of his excellent videos can be found in the forum thread HERE… all well worth watching! 

Saturday evening we attempted to find a pub with sufficient room to park and eat as a group (which is never easy during peak season around Abersoch) – still a beer and a hearty meal was eventually enjoyed and we all retired satisfied after a full days sloping.  Sadly, the winds on Sunday proved to be calm as forecast, and we spent the morning and early afternoon flying floaters and electric assist models – again out over Hells Mouth bay – until 3pm when we pulled stumps ahead of the long journey home.  Sad not to fly PSS both days, I guess we had to be thankful that Saturday was such a belter!

My thanks go to all who travelled to fly with us at this special location, and to the Lleyn MAC committee members who helped us organise the visit – we look forward to returning in 2017, when we are aiming to change the date of our annual event from August to June or July – more details to follow on that.