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.


Monday, 29 February 2016

Large Wing Disaster

Hi all

Well my weekends plans to head to Cornwall to visit family and fly at St Agnes Head went awry as my daughter in law fell ill, and I'm sure the last thing she needed were visitors to have to entertain.

So instead, I contacted the guy in Paignton, Devon who I had organised with to collect the Bird of Time I was buying from him, to see if it was ok to collect it on Saturday instead of Monday as previously planned. That turned out to be fine so Michelle and I headed to S Devon for the day.

That meant I was free to fly with the boys on Sunday.

The north easterly wind was bitterly cold and blowing at around 22 - 24 mph on Fochriw but slowly dying away and the usual crowd of guys were there flying the usual models. Until Richard from Cardiff turned up that is.

Richard had brought along a large chevron wing made from foam, set this up, and Chris duly launched it.

But rather than describe what happened, just take a look at the video.




After most of the others had gone home for the day, due to the cold and the ever decreasing wind, I stayed on and chewed the fat with Richard and his mate from Cardiff MAC.

The wind began to increase again so I took the opportunity and fly some more.

I had brought along my newly repaired Tracuer, which I haven't flown in probably about a year.

The launch was a bit hairy as with this model you really do have to stand on the edge of the ridge, otherwise it'll just be blown back at you. It also needed an awful lost of trim adjustment, but I eventually got that sorted out. I had also remembered from the last time I flew it, it had been a little tail heavy, so a 10 gram weight was taped onto the nose and this made all the difference.

I actually, thoroughly enjoyed flying it, so I'll make some mechanical adjustments to the flying controls and take her with me to fly again the next time conditions allow. I'll try to get some video of it as well. I would have done so this time but it was far too cold to be wearing my cap with the camera mount on it.

So until next time.
Happy flying.
Steve
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