This weekend, we were paid a visit by Andy Meade, who is well known amongst the PSS community and I met up with Andy on Saturday at Manmoel Common, the ENE facing slope which overlooks Festival Park Designer Discount Shopping Outlet at Ebbw Vale.
I arrived a while before Andy and our own Mark Williams when the breeze was only just strong enough to keep my Wildthing foamie in the air. By the time they had both arrived, the wind had completely died away and we were just stood there chatting and wondering whether a breeze might appear, but to no avail.
Sunday was a little better. Andy sent me a text message saying he was parked in the Wrecker lay-by at the Bwlch and there was a breeze blowing. I arrived about an hour later but again, there was only just enough air to keep a foamie up and found Andy and Mark, once again, chatting and wondering.
As the morning wore on and the ground warmed up in the sunshine, so the breeze picked up, and although it was still very light by Bwlch standards, we did manage to get in some satisfying flying on the north facing VR98 slope.
Down in our neck of the woods, we've never really got into PSS models, so everyone was very interested in seeing Andy's Messerschmitt ME-262, and even more interested to see it fly, and how well it flew indeed. Whether this will spur people to get on to build a PSS model I don't know, but we certainly enjoyed seeing something different on the slopes.
I think Andy enjoyed his time with us and our amazing slopes and that he will return sometime when the wind Gods are more favourable.
Here is some video of Andy flying his Precision Pike and ME-262, and Clive flying his Easy Glider.
About A470 Soaring
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.
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