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.


Wednesday 13 March 2019

Yaaaaay I finally went flying

Hey guys. Yes it has actually happened and I went flying, albeit only for an hour last Saturday. Up until now most weekends when I have been available to fly over the winter the weather has either been lousy or so little wind it wasn't worth the fuel cost to drive to the slopes.

The forecast for Saturday was a strong WSW, and as I only had a short window to fly due to having to be in Cardiff to watch the Scotland v Wales 6 Nations Championship rugby match, I decided to head to Meio. Once there, Clive was already there but the wind was westerly and so off the slope face. There is a small westerly facing part of the slope but this isn't particularly good and, although we had a strong wind of probably 25 mph, there was a lot of turbulence and our models were being buffeted about a lot.

Clive was flying his Genesis chevron wing, which he did well to fly as he found penetration against the wind a problem. I flew my Balistik chevron wing, which I had fully loaded with ballast, and although it did get buffeted about, it penetrated very well.

Hopefully now the weather should become a little kinder although we do appear to have storm after storm coming through from the Atlantic this week with high winds and lots of rain.

Just a date for your diaries but the PSSA are holding their annual event at the Bwlch on the weekend of the 11th & 12th May so please come along if you can make it.

Here is a short video of some of Saturdays flying. Enjoy.


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