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, 19 April 2016

PSSA Fly for Fun, April 2016 - Part 1

Hi all

Well the first PSSA Fly for Fun meet of 2016 turned out to be successful with a good turn out on both days and good weather.

Saturday saw the sun shining and a northerly wind blowing in off the Irish Sea at 25 - 27 mph. I think the star of the show that morning was the maiden flight of the Hawker Hurricane from Matt Jones, which is planned to be the PSSA mass build project in 2018, which didn't go quite as Matt planned I'm sure. The model turned out to be tail heavy and and he was close to losing it in the sea. But a few lumps of lead in the nose soon put this right.

By lunch time, the wind was dying off and changing direction slowly to NW.

So after lunch, we headed down to the grassy area to the west of the Rest & Be Thankful Cafe for the rest of the afternoon where we had to wait a couple of hours for the wind to begin to pick up again. But as soon as it did, the skies were suddenly full of models again.




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2 comments:

  1. Norrie Kerr23 May 2016 at 15:44

    What is the wingspan of the Hurricane and who supplies the plan. I am interested in possibly building one for the PSSA meeting in September as I intend taking a holiday and spending a few days on the Long Mynd then going to the Gliderfest at Llangollen before finishing at the Great Orme and then heading home to Aberdeen.
    Regards,
    Norrie

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  2. SteveH23 May 2016 at 16:19

    Hi Norrie. I have no details on the new Hurricane. At a guess I'd say the span is about 1.1 or 1.2m. The model shown on the video is a prototype and the guy who drew up the plans and built it is making some modifications and will then produce a second prototype. The plans, wood pack and canopy are not expected to become available until 2018, as this has been planned for the next PSSA mass build project, so I'm afraid you have some time to wait. There is a mass build project already underway for the Douglas A4 Skyhawk

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