The Bwlch PSSA Fly-In – 20th/21st May 2017

We return once again for our 2-day Fly-In on the slopes of South Wales!

Phil Cooke reports – All photos by the author.

Now in its third consecutive year, our annual meet in the Southern half of Wales ran once again in May, orchestrated by local flyer and PSSA member Steve Houghton. The event was well attended – on the Saturday in particular – and with the events location drawing on fliers who do not often travel as far North as Llandudno, a host of new or lesser seen PSS models were on show throughout the weekend!

Having driven from home through the night, myself and a number of other PSSA event regulars arrived early on Saturday to find the Ice-Cream car park meet point clagged in with rain and cloud! As forecast, the wind was blowing with a healthy South Westerly, and despite the rain there was a positive, optimistic vibe throughout the gathered attendees as we sat out the worst of the weather in the car park. Soon after the agreed start time of 10am, the rain had blown through and the low cloud lifted, so Steve unlocked the gate and we proceeded in a winding convoy up the gravel track towards the renowned S/W Mickey’s slope.

Once on site, Steve gave a pilots safety brief and shortly afterwards the first rigged models reached the slope and we got the weekends flying underway! The evident performance of the slope proving Jet Provosts and Hawks suggested the lift was plentiful in the 25mph wind, as we’ve grown to expect from Mickey’s slope – although the skies were still dark and threatening and at height the models were momentarily drifting in and out of the cloud base. Just after midday we endured a torrential downpour which required us to act quickly to protect the mass of models and equipment now out on display in the pits – thankfully this proved the very last of the rain all weekend and from that point on the weather on Saturday improved to a ‘clear skies’ condition by 2pm.  Jez Billington had joined us from the Long Mynd Soaring Association and brought with him a collection of impressive models including an original Dragon Models Aermacchi MB339 – finished in an attractive yellow and white scheme, based on the Australian Airforce ‘Roulette’ Display team colours.

Jez flew this model well on more than one occasion during the day, it had a good turn of pace and covered a lot of sky, the yellow scheme helping Jez pick the model out in the overcast skies during the morning session.  Later in the afternoon Jez flew a superb example of the DH108 Swallow (left) renovated from an original model designed and built by Vic Steel in the 90’s.  Spanning 90” this graceful 1/6^th scale flying wing had a great presence in the air.  I stood with Jez as he flew repeated circuits round the back and through the landing zone for the camera – clearly the model (and pilot) were revelling in the ideal slope conditions!

Another impressive model we’d not seen before at our events was the 90” span BAC Canberra (left) – built at 200% from the Andy Blackburn plans by Scott Edwards.  Finished in a classic silver and yellow RAF training scheme, Scott’s model is conventionally built up at 1/9^th scale and covered in tissue and acrylic floor varnish prior to paint, resulting in an impressive AUW of just 11.5lb.

The model flew with authority from launch, with good penetration and a nice, scale jet-like cruise speed. The model is clearly lightly loaded at this flying weight, and after a lengthy flight we enjoyed watching Scotty performing more than one ‘touch and go’ manoeuvres – the model simply not wanting to slow down or dump the lift in the landing zone.  Eventually the circuit was extended far enough back to allow a low angled, flared approach with a graceful touchdown which was greeted by applause from all those watching in the pits.

There were no less than THREE Boeing B-52s present on the Saturday, each built to the 108” span plans by Simon Cocker and piloted by Dave Gilder, Harry Twist and Scott Edwards. Sadly we did not manage to coordinate a simultaneous bombing mission, but we did take advantage of the grouping for some static photos!  All three models were flown independently during the afternoon and they all performed characteristically well in the superb slope conditions – each pilot electing to land out safely in the field behind the car park well beyond the extent of the landing zone still generating lift.

Other models worthy of note included a lovely rendition of the Avro 707 delta (above right) built and flown by John Treble.  In its overall gloss red scheme this striking model was going great guns until it suffered an unfortunate mid-air with the EPP Avro Vulcan being flown by Mike Grey.  Sadly, the impact was significant and both models crashed out with large parts of their original structure missing, in fact upon later inspection both models were found to have pieces of the other model embedded well within their airframes!

Dirk Tinck had travelled once again all the way from Belgium to fly his impressive O/D Fouga Magister from our UK slopes. This museum standard model still stops the show whenever it is flown and in between events it continues to be fitted out with additional scale details – this time it was housing a ¼ scale full bodied jet pilot.  From launch it was evident that the model was a little tail heavy and although flyable, Dirk had to continually fight an out of trim model and an overly sensitive elevator – particularly when the model was being flown at anything above its cruise speed.  Dirk explained that an error must have been made in removing too much nose weight to allow for the addition of the new pilot figure.  At the end of the flight, despite a tailored circuit and final approach, this balance concern resulted in a faster and heavier than normal arrival, the Bwlch’s unforgiving tufty grass putting an abrupt load into a wing tip which resulted in a damaged wing joiner within the fuselage.  Work is already well underway to ensure this fantastic model will grace the skies above South Wales again at the BwlchFest event in June.

Chris Barlow successfully test flew his new Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II (above left)  Built from the John Kidd power model plans and finished in the classic wrap around 3-tone ‘European 1’ scheme she was flown still awaiting national insignia and squadron markings.  The 56″ span model flew very well from Andy Meade’s launch and Chris immediately looked confident flying the model close in for the camera.  Great to see another Warthog on the slope!

Scott Edwards campaigned the smaller of his two Avro Lancasters to good effect, and fellow ISA club member Steve McLaren flew almost continuously throughout the afternoon with his Jet Provost, his Tornado GR1 (which still looks great beating up the slope with the weapon stores fitted) and his Australian Navy A-4 Skyhawk.

Originally built by Terry Lidstone, the unusual F-84 Thunderstreak was well flown by SWSA secretary Nick Rees and looked great in the air in its wrap around silver and day-glo orange scheme – as did the similar coloured prototype A-4D Skyhawk built and flown by Harry Twist.

Having de-rigged the Magister, Dirk Tinck unveiled a lovely rendition of the Bristol Blenheim bomber, built for electric flight from the old BalsaCraft kit.  Simply by removing the props the model was flown from the slope in full EP guise, and it performed really well – in fact Dirk was overheard stating he felt it flew better as a PSS model than it ever did from the flat field!

At 6pm we landed out and left the site (again in convoy) to enable an efficient locking of the gate at the foot of the hill.  Steve had booked us all a table at The Bunch Of Grapes pub in Pontypridd and a good size group of flyers and partners enjoyed some fine beers and a well-earned hearty meal at the end of a great first days flying.

Sunday dawned and brought with it a change in wind direction – the 25mph SSE wind saw us move over from Mickey’s slope to the ‘Back of Wrecker’ slope – one which we hadn’t flown before during a PSSA event.  We positioned ourselves on the higher ground, to the right hand side of the slope – enabling us to share the site with the F3F guys who (at short notice, it would appear) had organised their BMFA F3F League 2 qualifier event for the same day!  With a little care on frequency control this all worked without a hitch and there was plenty of room to conduct both events simultaneously without any concerns.

Although we were fewer in number than on the Saturday there was still a lot of PSS models on display and in action throughout day two of the event.  The slope lift was proven to be not as clean as we’d enjoyed on Mickeys – due primarily to the proximity of an adjacent landmass and the turbulating effects of the forest below the slope.  At times the heavier models felt ‘mushy’ – flying momentarily in unclean air and sitting in an ungainly tail down attitude until reaching more bouyant air.  The lighter models were more suited to the conditions, the numerous JP’s and A-4s all flying well during the morning.   Later in the afternoon with the sun shining we enjoyed better conditions all round as the slope lift was complimented with warm thermic air rising up from the forest.

Dirk Tinck and Steve McLaren both put on a good display with their WW2 twin engined bombers, the Blenheim and Mosquito respectively – nice to see these unusual types in action together on the slope.    Andy Meade flew his large SHM Avro Vulcan which looked great in the sunshine – particularly at low level carrying its Blue Steel payload within launch range of the target!  Andy’s 108” span Lockheed U-2S was also given a good outing – this agile model flies very well – nimble and uncharacteristically aerobatic in flight – and yet Andy is able to slow things down to walking pace for landing using a crow brake setting which enables a highly controllable and safe final approach – very impressive!

Harry Twist flew his new correx Horten flying wing very nicely, its faceted white and grey camouflage scheme looking great against the backdrop terrain and overcast skies, and both Peter Garsden and myself enjoyed lengthy flights with our A-4 Skyhawks.  At 4pm we gathered the pilots voting slips and awarded some prizes to the winners in the usual ‘Best Flown Jet’, ‘Best Flown Prop’ and ‘Model of the Event’ categories, with the following results;

Name	Category	Model
Dave Gilder	Best Flown Jet	Boeing B-52
Dirk Tinck	Best Flown Prop	Bristol Blenheim
Scott Edwards	Model of the Event	BAC Canberra

 

Fellow ISA member Steve McLaren (above right) accepted the ‘Model of the Event’ prize on behalf of Scott, who was unable to fly with us on the Sunday.   Well done to all the winners – and a big thanks to all who travelled to South Wales and took part.  Our special thanks go to Steve Houghton for organising the event on home turf and coordinating us as a group so effectively over the two days!

More photos from this event can be viewed in the modelflying forum HERE and on Flickr HERE.

Our next PSSA event runs 1^st & 2^nd July 2017 where we fly once again with the Lleyn MAC on the magnificent Lleyn peninsula, fingers crossed for a weekend with kind weather and warm Westerlies – I hope to see you there!