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.


Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Moth Build continued ....................

So the next job was to cut and sand the wing tips to shape.


Then I had to fit the rear carbon spar. This was achieved by measuring 3" down from the main spar, laying the rear spar on the foam and drawing the outline of the spar onto the foam. I then used a blade to cut the outline and a router type tool to remove the foam. I chose to use Gorilla glue instead of epoxy to glue the spar in place. The instructions say to use epoxy and then use scraps of balsa to fill any gaps, but by using the GG the glue filled any gaps instead.

The next job was to decide where to fit the servo's. The instructions recommend they are mounted up against the main spar, which makes sense! So I marked the foam and routered it out until the servo's, when fitted, were flush with the top surface of the wing.

The servo's were then potted. I mixed up some epoxy and used just enough the cover the walls and bottom of each servo bay. The servo was then placed in a polythene sandwich bag and pushed into the tight fitting bay and left to set. The servo was then taken out, removed from the bag and then I wrapped the servo in masking tape and secured the servo in place with a blob of hot melt glue.


The instructions say to fit the servo's so that the servo arms and control rods lay UNDERNEATH the wing. I have to say I do not like this idea. I guess it's fine if you are landing on a crown bowling green, but very few slopes are that smooth. Most of the UK forum builds I've looked at have put the control rods ABOVE the wing, and that is what I have done. This has meant I have had to take the servo wires over the top of the spar, but they should be ok.

So that is the wing now completed and ready to be mated with the fuselage, which will happen one I have made the RC component bay, which is my next job.




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