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.


Monday, 23 July 2018

My weekends flying on Meio

Yes, I did manage to fly on both Saturday and Sunday. I headed up to Meio on Saturday, early afternoon with the MPX Heron as I knew there would be very little slope lift, but the thermals should be good, and I was correct.

Once at the top of the slope, there wasn't enough wind to keep me airborne, but once I'd got some altitude using the motor, there were some big thermals about which kept me flying for a good time without having to resort to using the motor.

By mid afternoon the wind had increased sufficiently to just about keep me airborne using slope lift, but by then it was time for me to make a move home.


 

Sunday was a completely different day on Meio. I took the Heron, just in case the 12-14 mph wind forecast was incorrect, and the Genesis combat wing, and it was this that I flew that afternoon. The air was a bit bumpy but as the afternoon progressed and the thermals began to die down a bit, the air became smoother and I had some good flying.

I used these two flying opportunities to try out my new camera, and on Sunday I tried the video function by filming myself flying the Genesis. I didn't look at the footage until I got home and I found that the footage was really dark. I had a fiddle with the settings and I'm sure I had a setting wrong, so hopefully next time the picture quality should be much better. I did still use the footage though but I had to lighten the picture when I was editing the video. You can see the result in the video below. The Heron video was recorded on my GoPro Session.


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