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, 12 June 2014

What do they say practice makes?

I went out flying my Dream Flight Libelle again this evening. There were no thermals but my launch technique is improving, after watching countless videos. I've also been experimenting with adding speed flap on launch, about 1.5 mm of reflex on the ailerons gives you a much faster and steeper climb out.

At the top of the launch I'm trying to remember to level off quickly, before it reaches maximum height otherwise it stalls and you lose about 10' of height, and then flicking the switch to go from speed flap to normal. So on this evenings flights I was easily making an estimated 60' - 70'. Ok, that's nowhere near as high as the F3K guys go, but for a beginner flying an EPO DLG, that's not bad I think.

I've also added crow braking (on GLIDER set up, but you could set up Landing on an ACRO set up), which slows the plane down enough to be able to catch it easily but, if it is going to land on the ground, the plane adopts a nose down attitude, especially if you've set up elevator compensation. This has the effect of making the plane land nose first, so saving that delicate tail fin, (which I've already knocked off on mine).

So, the old adage of "practice makes perfect" is definitely true. Now all I have to do is find some thermals.

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