6 P's

Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Rachel and I intended to walk up Pen Y Fan yesterday from the Lower Neuadd Reservoir near Pontsiscill.
Dogs packed, Precision packed, boots, coats, hats etc, all packed for our 'no more than 4 hour' walk.
We headed off armed with a picture card/map with some quite detailed directions.
The only vague direction was how to get to the start point. 'Follow the small lane north from Pontsiscill to the car park near the reservoir'.
Anyway, the map suggested using an OS map, gave the reference for the suggested map, and I ignored it.

We parked up at the reservoir, donned our walking boots, popped our packs on and headed off, following the very clear directions up the bank on our left to the escarpment.... (1330 hrs)

The first 4 or 5 km's of our supposedly 11km round trip were spent discovering that we were never going to find the magical escarpment and we headed for Corn Du and Pen Y Fan in the distance.
We found some lovely places about. We even thought we might have found where we should have started our walk from...

It was challenging terrain, long grass over wet, boggy marshland type stuff. The Yorky (Fred) needed carrying through some of the worst parts.

At about 9 Km's into the walk, the map came into chrystal-clear view and it's accuracy was shown to be precise! We could see the start point below us as we stood on top of the magical Escarpment.
I was so chuffed that I had to have a quick flight in the very light conditions, but awesomely beautiful scenery.

Now the actual walk could start properly (1600 hrs).
One of the first top spots we got to would be incredible for DS! NE or SW winds, just for fun though. SW will nearly always bring hill fog. NE is chilly!!

Next peak was Corn Du. Those steps up the face were hard yesterday! The boys were chuffed for a break.

Got to the top of Pen Y Fan at 1800hrs. It's such a beautiful place to be, in most conditions, and yesterday was no different. I'd forgotten about the Upper Neuadd Reservoir ever having water in it. It has beed drained to protect the Grade 2 listed Dam Wall and probably wont be filled again. We could still see it and where it should be. It would be a lovely walk from there.

Downhill time and a race to the well marked roady-path before we couldn't see any more.

Discretion won over valour as we decided to leave Cribyn for next time. It is STEEEEEEP! and it was already pretty dark as we reached our decision point for ascent or not (1825).

Luckily, Rachel and I are pretty fit (on a global scale.....) and what we lack in fitness, we make up for in stubbornness and pig-headed determination.

We dragged our sorry limbs for the next three hours passed the suggested start point. Passed the suggested car park. Passed a massive reservoir and along another reservoir through a pine forest and finally back to the car (21xx hrs, I forgot to look). Fortunately it was all on an actual road once we got down to the Lower Neuadd Reservoir.

I printed out a series of OS maps to figure out our route. I still can't quite figure the part in the bottom left, reckon it was further. Next time I'll print the maps before doing the walk. What a Pillock!
A crude measurement of our route comes in at 23km's. No wonder I'm a bit tender today! Hopefully you can see our route in pen on the maps. 

We love an adventure!!!

Lucky boy with the Needle yesterday!

I did some more setting up yesterday on the cliffs near the farmhouse in Southerndown in pretty good lift although slightly crossed.
Got the Precision going well, although the ballast is in front of the CG so the heavier it gets, the more it pulls up. The main tube is pretty close to the CG, so I might just get some tungsten and forget the joiner ballast.
There has to be something else causing it....
The Needle 124 was going great! Then control got sluggish and and the brakes were only 1/2 deploying..... dying battery!!!!
Quick emergency landing done safely.

Today I made up a 2 cell LiIon battery and popped it in the nose with a 5V BEC and balanced her up. Good to go again!

More setting up and figuring out to do.

I'll be looking for another transmitter soon. The FF9 is a bit too long in the tooth. I'm thinking and FX30 or the handheld version.
I'm open to suggestions and reasonably priced offers 😆😇

Mickey's Westerly after work ;-)

After my disaster at the Welsh Open this year I had to get some time on the sticks with the ol' trusty FF9. Setting up the planes will take longer as each adjustment requires landing 😱.

Actually my landings are pretty good now 😂.

I had a quick flight on the Wrecker the other day with Andrzej (awesome to catch up with him!!) and after measuring the CG after managing to just get the needle down safely, it was found to be at 117mm 🙈..... I fly pretty rearward at 100 on the needle normally... 
so she was a little sketchy.

Anyhoo, I managed to sneak up to the Westerly slope of Mickeys on Wednesday after an early finish at work for some much needed stick time and set up time on the Pike Precision and Needle 124. The Westerly of Mickey's is ideal as the landing area is the nicest we have and it was worth the extra walk past a flyable Mickey's (Sorry Graham Wookman). 

CG on the Noodle was set at 100 and the only thing to get right now is the settings and travels. That'll take a little while I think.

The Precision gave me a few headaches tho. I thought I had set the CG at 107 and couldn't for the life of me figure out why I needed to add so much down elevator for straight and level flight. It turns out that I had set it at 97... 
I'm not sure that moving it back to 107 will have the desired effect on her flight characteristics, but we will see next time I take her out.

After getting both of them set to a level where I am confident that they won't just fall out the air, I am less fussy about where I fly next 😊

It was lovely to meet Graham (Sorry if it is spelt Graeme 😇) and share the walk, sky and a chat with him. He was flying a McMeekan Falcon and a Pike F3J plane (Superior?).
I didn't take any vids and only managed a couple of photos.
We had some Welsh Clag to play with too.... for a change.