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 1 May 2016

Maiden Flight of the PSS SU-27 Flanker

Hi all

Well  yesterday there were a whole load of us on the Ice Cream slope at the Bwlch, in fact I don't think I've seen that many locals out for a fun days flying.

When I arrived, the wind speed was topping out at about 15 mph, but was slowly increasing. The Ice Cream slope is fairly consistent and you can usually guarantee a good days flying on it, however yesterday was different, the lift kept coming and going, was swinging from north westerly to westerly, big thermals coming through with equally big patches of sink following.

As the wind speed increased to 18 mph, Andy Meade decided it was time to give his newly built PSS SU-27 Flanker it's maiden flight.

Initially from the launch it looked very promising, however seconds after the launch, the wind direction shifted and he also ended up in a big sink patch.

Andy kept his head and although the model was losing height, he persisted with traversing the slope until eventually he regained enough height to land. Phew.

Almost immediately he relaunched but this time he was not so lucky and he had to land out, maybe 100m below the ridge line, but he did make a perfect landing and no damage was sustained to the aircraft.

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