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.


Sunday 13 March 2016

Thermal Soaring on Manmoel Common, Ebbw Vale

I had some time off work on Friday, and as the weather forecast was good for some thermal soaring, I loaded both the 2m Climaxx Compact and the 2.85m Thermal Instinct in the car and headed up to Manmoel Common, Ebbw Vale.

The air was very still but I could feel the warmth in the sun as I launched the Climaxx Compact.

Almost immediately after shutting down the motor, I was into a thermal, which took me way up until it was a speck in the sky. At one stage, even a Buzzard came and joined me in the thermal.

Then a Police helicopter came along which had been hovering about a mile away but seemed to want to take a look at what I was doing and then, satisfied that I was ok, he turned back to where he had been hovering previously. But because he had come so close to me, I had to bail out of the thermal I was in and lose some height rapidly.

Anyway, the following video tells the story, so enjoy.


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