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.


Tuesday 28 April 2015

Weekend fun on Fochriw

Well Sunday began a bit grey and cold as Mark and I sat in his car overlooking the slope and valley beyond, and the Brecon Beacons in the distance from one of our favourite slopes, Fochriw.

After a while, the greyness was replaced by blue sky and sunshine as Phil and Wayne turned up. We were also joined by a gent from the Forest of Dean who flew a beautiful scale model.

Wayne had brought "Pinky" along, the HK Speedy he got off Phil. It was good to see it in the air again.

Phil brought his PSS Vulcan along. Last weekend he gave it it's maiden flight, which didn't go well and the model broke in a few places. This was seemed to be caused by incorrect information given regarding the correct position of the C of G.

With the C of G altered, he lobbed it off the slope and off it went.

Upon landing he could see just how much right aileron trim he'd had to add, and so on his second flight he added a little weight to the wing tip and added some extra tail weight, as removing nose weight was more difficult on the slope, and by all accounts the model flew better again. So he is getting there and once it's trimmed out properly I'm sure it will be a great flier.

We all had some great fun flying the usual foamies and the lift on Fochriw didn't disappoint, although it was quite thermic that day.

So here are a couple of video's showing the days flying.

Until next time, happy flying.

Steve






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1 comment:

  1. Phil30 April 2015 at 08:42

    Mark Kettle, designer and builder of my Vulcan, has been a great help with this balance issue.
    After following his advice regarding the control throws and c of g we got it flying last weekend and hoping to fly it again this weekend.

    This appears to be the only one of a few flying that had this problem. ..anyway we are heading in the right direction, he's even chucked a couple of pots of paint in the post for me to touch up the repairs 👍

    Mark is at the prototype stage with a 40" span epp Spitfire for the slopes which looks very promising. Good luck with that one.

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