The Bwlch PSSA Fly-In – 12th/13th May 2018

Mickey’s Slope once again sets the scene for our annual SWSA event!  Phil Cooke reports – All photos by the author.

With a commitment at home on the Saturday I would miss the first days flying of this, now annual 2 day SWSA event.  It was 6pm before I arrived in Pontypridd – just in time to get washed up and ready for the planned evening meal at the excellent ‘Bunch of Grapes’ real ale tavern in town.  During the meal I learnt that Saturday had been dominated by high pressure conditions and that the only PSS flying was achieved by Harry Twist with his FMS foam Alpha Jet.  Needless to say – despite the conditions – the guys who’d travelled still made the most of their day outdoors with sports and electric assist models and everyone enjoyed the meal and beer after a day on the slope.

Sunday dawned and brought with it more favourable conditions!  Once our hearty Full Welsh breakfasts had been mopped up we made our way to the ‘Ice Cream’ car park meeting point for the agreed 10am.  There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the NW breeze was blowing smoothly onto the ‘Ice Cream’ slope.  The 8 or so pilots in attendance, led by event organisers Steve Houghton and Nick Rees rigged some of the lighter models and we made our way along the path out towards the flying site – the first time I’d flown from this particular slope.  Perhaps not as steep as some of the other slopes in the area Steve assured us the lifting characteristics were very good – as was the landing zone.  Oddly, the wind speed at the slope felt less upon arrival than it did in the car park – the wind turbines visible across the valley were turning well yet we seemed to be bathed in a lull for a while.
Alpha Jets and even Jet Provosts were flown for short periods when the wind touched perhaps 12 mph but in what was almost thermic conditions – the wind was rising and falling almost to nothing in a cyclic manner.After an hour or so here, it became apparent that the prevailing wind direction was also changing towards the West, and once the slope was clearly no longer working we pulled stumps, walked back to the cars and drove up in convoy to Mickeys slope.  From this point on, just before midday, the event came to life!

Winds here were now bang on the South Westerly slope with speeds measured between 18 and 24 mph, and we were still enjoying blue skies – Perfect!

The slow start meant that folk were very keen to fly and it didn’t take long at all before the skies were full with PSS models revelling in the now ideal conditions.  Everything finally came together, including the light, meaning the models were looking very photogenic through the camera lens!

I got some early flight time in with my faithful old Jet Provost but found myself landing out on numerous occasions to take photos when new or rarely seen models were being flown.

Andy Meade had brought with him his brand new Dassault Rafale, a very recent PSS conversion from the HET R/C EDF kit, a 2.2lb AUW model in PSS guise of just 33” span.    It looked really menacing in a 2 tone desert scheme and it was Steve Houghton who took the job of launching this brand new model out into the lift.

Although balanced as per the power model recommendations, initial flights proved the model to be nose heavy and Andy had to combat this with up trim on the full span elevons.  A number of flights were performed throughout the day, each time the CoG was moved incrementally rearwards, each time the performance got slightly better as the parasitic trim was dialled out allowing the model to penetrate.

Harry Twist flew his Silver and Day-Glo orange Jet Provost, recently acquired from Matt Jones, which went really well in the conditions.  Harry also had a number of flights with a new little Su-27 Flanker, a foam model originally designed for a pusher EP set up – but here stripped of powertrain for pure PSS.

Again, balance issues were initially combatted through transmitter input and over a series of flights the model was refined with alterations in CoG.  Very soon Harry had the model performing well and he enjoyed some lengthy airtime with this bespoke model.

Alan Gorham had made the trip all the way from the North East, his first visit to The Bwlch – and following the calm day on Saturday where we relied on electric flight, it was great to see him getting some good quality stick time on his BAe Hawk, beautifully finished in a classic RAF Chivenor TWU scheme.

There were a number of home-brew correx models on show, particularly popular with the local flyers here it seems.  The all black ‘Aggressor’ L-39 Albatross was of worthy note as another maiden flight and the model flew very well from the off!

Andy Meade had a number of excellent flights with his large scale Lockheed U2, the model revelling in the lift and making the most of the huge airspace offered to us at Mickey’s slope.   It’s a slippy model and covers a lot of sky fast, aerobatic too as Andy ably demonstrated to us all.  Sadly the model was damaged late on in the day during a cross slope aerobatic manoeuvre, but I know Andy will have any repairs complete and the model airworthy again very soon!Steve McLaren was active throughout the day, flying his venerable Jet Provost, his New Zealand Navy A-4 Skyhawk and his DH Mosquito built from the Cloud Models kit.  This model is still testing Steve in flight, as it demonstrates  a speed dependant trim issue where the model can ‘tuck in’ on you in pitch when you get the speed on.

Steve was good enough to let me experience this phenomena first hand with a few minutes stick time.  The model is trimmed and behaves very nicely in a steady cruise, but when you drop the nose and build airspeed the model quickly ascertains a different feel – the pitch becomes hyper sensitive and occasionally the nose drops uncommanded as it ‘tucks in’ – requiring a constant focus and steady hand to deal with smoothly without oscillation and over control.  Bleed the speed off again and return to a steady cruise, and the model changes character once more to a well behaved sloper.

Anyone lend any advice to help Steve put this right?

Local flyers put in a good attendance – Steve Houghton flew his lovely black and gold MB-339 Aermacchi and Keith Setchwell flew his home brew Avro Vulcan and a small scale GWS A-10 Thunderbolt to good effect.

We flew on in perfect conditions until well gone 6pm.  The lift was still blowing strong and the skies were still blue with fluffy high level clouds – making the Bwlch a very difficult place to leave!  But it was now Sunday evening and many of us still had a drive of many hours ahead of us before our weekend was concluded.  Although Saturday saw very little in the way of PSS flying due to low winds, we certainly made up for that on the Sunday and we all enjoyed a successful days flying.  Some of the photos taken on the Sunday can be viewed in the album HERE.

A big thanks go to Steve Houghton and Nick Rees once again for organising the event and conducting our activities over the 2 days, and thanks also to everyone who travelled to make this event a success.