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 3 November 2015

Polecat rebuild

This was the Ron Broughton Polecat that I got from Phil.


This was the Polecat after I lost the plot after flying on Meio earlier on in the year. 


So now the rebuild begins and I have  stripped the covering from the wing and underneath is laminate film, what some would call, "new stuff". 


So the lam has to come off and then I have to get those creases out as much as possible using the boiling water method. Then using light weight filler to fill in what's left before I recover with glass fibre. 

I need to get some advice because I haven't covered anything before with glass although I do know the technique. But what I want to know is, after rubbing down to a smooth finish, will I be able to cover with iron on film or does it have to be painted? Or even better, is it possible to add colour to the Poly C water based polyurethane, which is what I shall be using instead of epoxy resin. 

If you know the answer to any of these questions, please let me know. 

I shall update this build as I go on but it certainly won't be a quick job, well, I'm
a busy boy you know. 


** So I've been thinking about this since I wrote this post and as the lam is quite good with no bubbles and fixed securely to the foam, I think I'm just going to stick with the lam and not glass the wing. So I will remove the lam from the wing tip so I can remove and fill the creases, and recover the tips with lam before covering in iron on film.

The fuselage is a different matter. As it has split in two across the wing seat, I think I will glass it to give it additional strength in this area, as it now, it will always be a weak spot.

Follow this build in the Polecat Rebuild Tab.


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