Christmas slope safari to Wales

In the holiday period between Christmas and the New Year I drove up to Wales to meet my old mate Ian. Surprisingly the weather for Wales was dry but grey and gloomy for most of the time, which was much better than the usual rain.

The last few times I have been flying with Ian we have had light Southerly winds and for this trip the trend continued. We had planned to go flying on the 'back of the wrecker' but found out the day before there was a F3F competition planned there so our alternative slope options where very limited.

When I drive from my In-laws over to Ian's I generally drive up over the Western edge of the Brecons, over 'The Black Mountain' which shouldn't be mistaken for 'The Black Mountains'. 

The Black Mountain sits 502 metres (1646ft) high above sea level. The hill itself is mighty but beautiful when you can see the view from the top but unfortunately for our visit the summit was covered in thick cloud. 

I met Ian up at the top car park which had about 10 metres visibility but a few hundred feet below the visibility was much better with many smaller slopes below. So we headed down to find somewhere to fly. We parked up and walked off looking for a slope into wind. Watching the birds upwind they showed us the edge of a slope and it was producing lift.

Back to the car to collect a model with my choice being my new Wisel glider and Ian with his SAS Starjet.

Here is a little video from our first few flights from this lower slope above Brynamman.

The Wisel had its maiden flight with lots of trimming needed to get it to fly straight and level. After trimming it flew as you would expect but it does need some weight removing from the nose and soem work to get the thing flying level without loads of right trim. As John M mentioned it soon dissappears into the sky and I am really pleased that I covered it in bright film, especially in the poor visability conditions on this day.

We decided we needed bigger wings for the lighter conditions, so back off to the car to collect my Ascot and Ian's Shadow.

Even with the damp and dingy conditions we had a good laugh and some worthwhile flying. As I have always said if you make the effort it generally pays dividends.

One small issue was the bolder field we had to land on. It was a bit of a gamble or hit and miss shall we say you landed without hitting a rock on your ground run. It was a long way to drive but always a pleasure to go flying with Ian and a pleasure to be up in the Brecons once again.

A small group of us are planning a trip to South Wales toward the end of April if anyone else is interested coming along. The countryside is stunning and the flying sites are amazing so what have you got to loose?

Thanks Ian for the great company as usual !