PSSA Lleyn Peninsula 2018

Whilst the club was holding its first inter-club competition of the year, which was dedicated to Scale, PSSA was holding its usual Lleyn Peninsula Event over the weekend of 30th June/1st July 2018.

More content of the event will be added below, but in the meanwhile, here are my photographs from the weekend. Click here. Also see Phil Cooke’s excellent photographs here

Day 0 – I say zero because I took an extra day off work and arrived on Thursday night. I had seen the forecast was North Easterlies, so decided to do an advanced sortie since the wind direction was highly unusual for the end of June. I decided to check out 2 Lleyn Model Club sites at Mynydd Rhiu and Mynydd Mawr – both Northerly and North Easterly (Rhiu). My adventures can be seen on Facebook. Save for one flight at a beautiful spot overlooking the sea at the Coastal Lookout point beyond Aberdaron, it was not very succesful

Day 1 – we were beset with a High Pressure Zone (again – replay of the April Meeting) which meant it was stinking hot and no slope soaring until 5pm, when miraculously, thanks the meteorological miracle summoned by “our leader” Phil Cooke, the winds arrived to the North West, where we were stationed, overlooking Hell’s Mouth, and the conditions were suddenly sublime.

All came with Electric Models, however, and most of us flew for the day from a field full of gorse, which was painful to retrieve from if you were wearing shoes and open toe sandals. Different, and fun none the less.

Thanks to a might DLG launch by Bob Jennings (thanks Bob) my Libelle was sky rocketted upwards by a massive thermal, and carried on flying for over an hour. Others then had confidence and joined suit. The PSS weekend had begun. My flying was terminated suddenly when I saw my wing and fuselage fluttering down to Earth, followed by a tailplane on the wing of a Pike (plane not fish) flying at Mach 1, and a rudder fluttering in the opposite direction. My face was outwardly “not bothered”, but inwardly more like a bumble bee chewing a wasp. It was more like a Hawk killing a mouse from great height, then eating it for its supper. Fortunately, we managed to retrieve all the important bits ie the servos and radio. The wing is fine, but the rest is not. Still that is always the risk if there are lots of planes in the air. Nobody’s fault, it is just one of those things. It won’t be the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.

As usual, we retired fot a convivial Evening Meal at the Sun Inn. We have moved this weekend back to earlier in the year because it is so difficult to find anywhere to eat in the middle of August. The Sun was busy, but not impossible. The food was good and the company outstanding. Banter was exchanged, and the memories of the day reminisced.

Day 2 – the forecast on XC Weather changed overnight to North Westerlies from 11am onwards. True to the forecast they arrived. We were in PSS heaven and one could fly most models. The lift from the slope was smooth and constant, with little if no sign of turbulence.

The motor powered thermal soarers went away, and the PSS models came out. There were a goodly selection of new models we hadn’t seen before – a lovely Halifax, a very large Hurricane with superb scale detail, a Canberra from the RCM&E free plan of Andy Blackburn design, and many others. I took a few photos which you can see via the link.

Phil, as usual took many more which can be viewed when he has cropped and sorted them out.

The models all looked superb against the clear blue sky and the sea below.