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, 9 June 2017

Bwlchfest weather forecast

Hi all, I have to say I'm beginning to get a little excited, and nervous at the same time about my first Bwlchfest.

Yesterday the forecast was pants for the Saturday, and I was thinking that we'd have to give up on the flying and do a pub crawl in Cardiff instead.

Oh how 24 hours can make a difference.

Saturday - This is now looking like being a dry but cloudy day with a southerly wind, possibly swinging to south west later in the afternoon, of about 20 mph plus on the ridge.

Our choice of slope will be Back of Wrecker, so car parking can be in the Wrecker lay-by and along the road.


Ignore the Flying Area Here in the pic as this is the Wrecker. The Back of Wrecker is out of shot, just beyond where it says Landing Zone Here. You can see the track leading to the slope.

From the lay-by, walk across the road where you will see a trodden track leading to the brow of the hill. Take this track to the top, walk just a little further, and stop before you fall off the very steep cliff face.



I may just take us down to the left of the ridge a bit as the lift can be a bit better there, however you do have to land a little further back as it can suffer from a touch of rotor, whereas the higher point of the ridge doesn't suffer from rotor that much.

Sunday - This depends on which forecast you look at. The Met Office says rain but the BBC say mostly dry, and I don't trust the XC forecast any more as it has been wrong too many times for my liking.

But we are looking at a south westerly wind in excess of 20 mph, and so that means the Mickey's slope.

I will take a look at the forecast later this evening and post again should the forecast change, then again on Saturday evening and post anyway.

I look forward to seeing you all there 👍

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