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.


Friday, 31 March 2017

South Wales Soaring Association

A few days ago, on the Slope Soaring in Wales Facebook group page, someone asked if the SWSA (South Wales Soaring Association) was still in existence.

This was a good question, because most of the guys locally didn't know, and the website hadn't been updated since 2009.

However, someone was still paying the land owner at the Bwlch for official access to the flying areas, and someone was still organising the annual Welsh Open F3F competition and the winter league competitions. So it appears that the SWSA was only being used for organising F3F competitions and keeping a place to hold them.

After a lot of banter on Facebook, and making a few enquiries myself, I managed to contact a couple of the clubs committee members, and it transpires that they are ready to hand over the reigns to more local guys. (The chairman now lives in Scotland).

There is still a lot of discussion to be had with the existing committee before a hand over can take place, and work to be done developing a new website, new committee members to be chosen, should this be required, and many other details to discuss. It will take time but we will get there in the end.

I feel this is a good thing for slope flying in S Wales as it appears the SWSA had become stagnant. It will be good for the local fliers, to bring them closer together. Good too for promoting S Wales as a flying venue. Good for promoting slope soaring to new fliers. Good for F3F competitions at the Bwlch.

Once all the details have been sorted, and a new website is available, I will add a page to this blog and create a link to the new SWSA.
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3 comments:

  1. Andy4 April 2017 at 11:37

    Interesting times, hope it all comes through. I'm looking forward to sending off my membership money :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. SteveH4 April 2017 at 16:04

    We shall look forward to having you on board Andy. See you at the weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown2 April 2020 at 14:03

    at the time SWSA were very active with F3F 60 inch PSS plus club level comps

    ReplyDelete

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