science

Pendine Sands

Pendine Sands is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pendine Sands rather than just read about it. In short: Pendine Sands (Welsh: Traeth Pentywyn) is a 7-mile (11 km) beach on the shores of Carmarthen Bay on the south coast of Wales. It stretches west to east from Gilman Point to Laugharne Sands.

Key takeaways

Pendine Sands belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pendine Sands to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pendine Sands from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pendine Sands (Welsh: Traeth Pentywyn) is a 7-mile (11 km) beach on the shores of Carmarthen Bay on the south coast of Wales. It stretches west to east from Gilman Point to Laugharne Sands. The village of Pendine (Welsh: Pentywyn) is close to the western end of the beach.

In the early 1900s the sands were used as a venue for car and motor cycle races. From 1922 the annual Welsh TT motor cycle event was held here. The firm, flat surface of the beach created a race track that was straighter and smoother than many major roads of the time. Motor Cycle magazine described the sands as "the finest natural speedway imaginable".

Classic record attempts In the 1920s it became clear that roads and race tracks were no longer adequate venues for attempts on the world land speed record. As record-breaking speeds approached 150 mph (240 km/h), the requirements for acceleration to top speed before the measured mile and safe braking distance afterwards meant that a smooth, flat, straight surface of at least 5 miles (8.0 km) in length was needed. The first person to use Pendine Sands for a world land speed record attempt was Malcolm Campbell. On 25 September 1924 he set a world land speed record of 146.16 mph (235.22 km/h) on Pendine Sands in his Sunbeam 350HP car Blue Bird.

Four other record-breaking runs were made on Pendine Sands between 1924 and 1927; two more by Campbell, and two by Welshman J. G. Parry-Thomas in his car Babs. Firstly the 150 mph (240 km/h) barrier was broken by Campbell. In April 1926, Parry-Thomas added approximately 20 mph to break the land speed record at 171.02 mph (273.6 km/h). Campbell raised the record to 174.22 mph (280.38 km/h) in February 1927 with his second Blue Bird. On 3 March 1927, Parry-Thomas attempted to beat Campbell's record. On his final run while travelling at about 170 mph (270 km/h) the car crashed. There is an untrue urban myth that the exposed drive chain broke and partially decapitated him; Babs went out of control and rolled over. Parry-Thomas was the first driver to be killed in a world land speed record attempt. One further attempt at the Land Speed Record was planned by Giulio Foresti in the "Djelmo", but Foresti crashed during a test run on 26 November 1927, totally destroying the car. In 1933, Amy Johnson and her husband, Jim Mollison, took off from Pendine Sands in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide, G-ACCV "Seafarer", to fly non-stop to New York. Their aircraft ran out of fuel and was forced to crash-land at Bridgeport, Connecticut, just short of New York; both were seriously injured in the crash. In June 2000, Donald Charles "Don" Wales, grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell and a nephew of Donald Campbell, set the UK electric land speed record at Pendine Sands in Blue Bird Electric 2, achieving a speed of 137 mph (220 km/h).

Present day The Ministry of Defence (MOD) acquired Pendine Sands during the Second World War and used it as a firing range. The beach is still owned by the Ministry of Defence; prominent signs warn of the dangers of unexploded munitions and public access is restricted. From Monday to Friday part of the beach is closed off because of MOD operations. Between 9 July 2004 and May 2010 all vehicles were banned from using Pendine because of safety concerns, but since May 2010 cars have again been allowed access.

Parry-Thomas's car was buried in the sand dunes near the village of Pendine after his accident. In 1969, Owen Wyn Owen, an engineering lecturer from Bangor Technical College, received permission to excavate Babs, which he spent the next 16 years restoring. The car could be seen on display at the Museum of Speed in Pendine village during the summer months, prior to demolition of the building for redevelopment. In 2011, Aardman Animations claimed the world's largest stop motion film set for Gulp, a short film. The beach was used as a 'canvas' with some props and characters sculpted from the sand. The film was captured using Nokia N8, then Nokia's top-of-the-range mobile phone. Overhead shots were obtained via a telescopic cherry picker platform on wheels. On 21 and 22 June 2013, Pendine Land Speed Racing Club initiated land speed racing events again on the sands. The Vintage Hot Rod Association hosted their inaugural Amateur Hot Rod Races on Pendine Sands on 7 September 2013. Racing was open to members of the VHRA and their pre-1949 hot rods and saw 80 vehicles being timed flat out on the sands. This annual event involves participants from around the world. The event culminated in the VHRA winning a Motoring Event of the Year accolade at the International Historic Motoring Awards. In September 2013, Guy Martin broke the UK speed record for a bicycle ridden in the slipstream of another vehicle. He hit a top speed of 112.9 mph while riding behind a modified truck driven by former British Truck Racing Championship winner, Dave Jenkins. The preparations for the record attempt were documented in Episode 1 of a Channel 4 series called Speed with Guy Martin, first broadcast in the UK in December 2013. On 7 May 2015, actor Idris Elba broke the historic 'flying mile' UK land speed record, originally set by Malcolm Campbell, in a Bentley Continental GT Speed. The recorded speed was 180.361 mph.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pendine Sands

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pendine Sands claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pendine Sands before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pendine Sands ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pendine Sands

In research: Pendine Sands appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pendine Sands in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pendine Sands is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Beach racing, Beaches of Carmarthenshire, Carmarthen Bay, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pendine Sands outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pendine Sands in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pendine Sands means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pendine Sands out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pendine Sands in simple terms?

Pendine Sands (Welsh: Traeth Pentywyn) is a 7-mile (11 km) beach on the shores of Carmarthen Bay on the south coast of Wales. It stretches west to east from Gilman Point to Laugharne Sands.

Why does Pendine Sands matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pendine Sands?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pendine Sands.