Bob Ellis wins Gower Cup at Llanbedr's first air race

Local pilot Bob Ellis won the weekend’s Gower Cup air race held for the first time at Llanbedr Airport. Amazingly, given the weather around the UK, it stayed fine for the event staged by the Royal Aero Club 3Rs.

A total of 18 pilots and aircraft took part in the race, though one had a seized wheel brake on the take-off roll causing it to catch fire. Llanbedr’s fire crew quickly extinguished the fire, and moved it off the active runway so the race could continue.

Haverfordwest resident Bob Ellis, already the 2015 British and European air racing champion, waited patiently in his homebuilt Vans RV8 for the slower aircraft to depart before his turn to be flagged off. At 15.40 the first aircraft was waved off followed by the remaining 16 racers at their allocated times for this three lap, 100 nautical mile race.

The route was a straight line over the dunes, past the scatter point and off towards the second turn point, then across the bay to Abersoch before a swift turn over the lifeboat house prior to whipping around the lighthouse and back to the airfield and two more laps. The handicapper had done his job excellently as the planes came in two waves across the dunes towards the finish line.

First across the finish line was Roderick Morton in his Lake Amphibian but due to the handicapping system he came fifth. The declared winner was Bob Ellis. Second was Mark Hanson with navigator Gervais Henderson in an Extra 300L, third Dominic Crossan with Roger Scholes in a Vans RV6.

Overnight rain started which led to Sunday’s race for the Goodyear Trophy, a large mounted silver seagull, being abandoned.

Bob Ellis now lies in second place in the championship table behind pilot Mark Turner in his Vans RV7. – Judith Wordsworth