A470 Soaring: " New Stuff" or Laminating

About A470 Soaring

This is the blog for a few guys who spend their time flying radio controlled gliders, or slope soarer's, from the many and varied slopes around SE Wales.

This usually begins at the northern end of Cardiff, driving north up the A470 up to the Heads of the Valley's and the southern fringe of the Brecon Beacons. But the A470 road continues its windy way all the way to N Wales.

There are many slopes available for most wind directions, the most famous being the area between Nant-y-Moel and Treorchi known as The Bwlch, which has some of the best slopes and flying in Europe with many F3F competitions being held there each year and visited by many fliers from Europe and around the world. At 1500 feet (450m) above sea level, there is usually more wind than not, and certainly more than at sea level.

If you require any further information, are new to slope soaring or are visiting the area, please contact Steve at steve.houghton59@gmail.com . I look forward to hearing from you.

Take a look at Page 2 (look below and to the left here) for Google maps of our most popular Flying Sites.

Thursday, 3 April 2014

" New Stuff" or Laminating

Back in the spring of 2011, I found myself having gone a few weeks without flying my powered models due to strong winds. So I bought myself a cheap, foamy slope soarer, thinking it would give me something to fly on those windy days when my powered planes were grounded. I bought the Flyingwings Hawk, and it being my first foamy plane, followed the instructions and built it.

I took it up a local slope on Twmbarlwm and I was immediately hooked on slope soaring. I've hardly flown powered since.

Well after 3 years I thought it was about time I gave it a new lease of life and have stripped it of its GF and packing tape and recovered it in " New Stuff", or laminate, which is heat activated and doesn't shrink. It offers light weight with incredible strength, so much so that GF tape isn't needed.

I just have a few little things to do to it, connect the servo linkage, add some vinyl decoration and put it back together again, ie, attach wing to fuz and the fin.

So here is what it looked like in 2011