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.


Monday, 14 April 2014

Spook & Hawk

Sunday 13th April 2014 - The usual four of us, Phil, Mark, Chris and myself, met on the Ice Cream slope at The Bwlch. It was a beautiful sunny day with a light breeze and stronger gusts as the thermals came through. We didn't bother setting up the mouldies as the forecast was for the wind to shift from the NW to West which would mean packing up for the long walk to Mickey's.

Phil had brought his new plane, the Spook from www.flyingwings.co.uk and gave that it's first chuck of the day and I flew my newly rebuilt flyingwings Hawk, which I featured here in an earlier blog.

We were only on the Ice Cream slope for about an hour before the wind began to shift and we began the long trek over to Mickey's West. But the trek was worth it and we had a cracking days flying.

Here is a video of Phil maidening his Spook on the Ice Cream slope and me flying the Hawk on Mickey's. Later in the week, if I get time, I'll load up another video showing some of the other models flying on Mickey's.


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