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 6 July 2018

PSSA meet & Weekend flying forecast

Good morning all, it's another beautiful summers day here in Wales, as it has been all week and it looks set to continue into next week also.

Last Friday I made the long drive, ( 4 ½ hours) up to Abersoch in N Wales for the PSSA meet. The weather was glorious all weekend, however there wasn't enough wind on Saturday to fly PSS models off the slope and we had to resort to flying powered models, mostly the Phoenix 2m powered glider, for some thermal soaring. I took my Multiplex Heron which I'd managed to fix up ready for the weekend after having ploughed it into the ground on its maiden flight a week before when it tip stalled and hit the ground nose first, breaking the nose off just behind the motor. If it hadn't been for the Heron I wouldn't have flown at all on Saturday.

Sunday began with little wind, and what wind there was, was coming from the wrong direction, but the forecast was for the wind to change direction and increase, which fortunately it did and we all managed to get some slope flying in, until about mid afternoon when the wind direction changed again and became well off the slope face, so I decided to make a move home a little earlier than intended.

Here's a short video of some of the action.




This weekends weather forecast is looking good    if you want to sun bathe or go thermal soaring, but NOT if you want to hit the slopes.

Saturday - A hot sunny day of 26°C but with a north west to westerly breeze of only 5 - 9 mph. If you wanted to try the slopes then Meio or Mickeys may be your best bets.

Sunday - is looking like another gloriously hot day like Saturday but with NNE to N breeze of 5 - 9 mph. Meio may be your best bet here, or the VR98.

I will probably go to the Eglwysilan clubs field on Saturday and fly my Heron for about noon but will be making a hasty retreat about 2 PM to watch the England v Sweden game. Sunday morning I am running so I'll be recovering in a pub beer garden somewhere in the afternoon.

Whatever you decide to do, have a great weekend and don't forget to slap on the sun block.



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