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 14 December 2020

D-Power Streamline 350 - Part 2

 A week ago I headed up to the top of Meio with the Streamline 350 and a Bird of Time. The weather was cloudy and grey with a light breeze which I estimated to be 10 - 15 mph, ideal conditions to try flying the Streamline from the slope for the 1st time. And that was why I bought it, to fly from the slope when the wind was marginal and up to about 15 mph when a conventional slope model would be more comfortable flying. 

Fortunately all went well on the 1st flight with flying buddy Clive doing the honours giving it a chuck off the slope. The streamline flew away nicely and didn't need any assistance from the motor at all. I had a 2nd flight where I launched it myself also and once again all was well. I will make another video after I've flown it more to give a more comprehensive review of this model.

I also took along a Dynaflite Bird of Time ARF which I'd bought a couple of years ago 2nd hand and had been mostly completed but never flown. Clive said that it wasn't too windy to fly it and so that's what I did. Clive told me to allow a good distance for my landing approach as this model has a tendancy to float on, but that wasn't the case in this instance and it landed way further back than I expected. 

This video is quite long at about 22 minutes so grab yourself a cuppa tea and a biscuit and enjoy. Please leave any comments on the video and subscribe to my channel.


Friday 4 December 2020

MPX Heron & Radian Pro on the slope in light conditions

 Following on from my last post where I was flying the MPX Heron, Josh his Radian Pro & Clive his Manta. A sea breeze began to pick up and Clive went home so Josh and I stayed on and decided to fly off the slope. Here is the video of how we got on.


Tuesday 1 December 2020

Radian Pro - MPX Heron & Mantis

 Three weeks ago the Welsh government released Wales from COVID lockdown #2 and so plans were made by the local slope fliers to have a days flying on the following weekend. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and any plans to fly were scrapped, and so we waited for that all important weather forecast later the following week. 

The following Sunday the weather was lovely with sunshine and barely a breath of wind, which isn't good for slope soaring but very nice for a spot of themal soaring, and with that the guys decided to fly on the top of Meio.

Now I hadn't flown Meio this year as in February the weather was attrocious with heavy rain and localised flooding, and the road leading up to Meio had been all but washed away, and then we went into lockdown #1. 

The last time I was on Meio the flat top of the hill was about 3 feet deep in ferns and other rough vegetation but, according to one of the guys, this had been mostly cut down and there was a very nice landing strip as long and as wide as you like. Even I couldn't miss that runway! 😂

When I arrived Clive and Josh were already there, Josh flying a Radian Pro and Clive a Mantis and I had brought my MPX Heron. The Mantis is a old design with a 3m pylon mounted foam wing with flaps, a carbon tube boom and Clive had made up a fuselage pod to house the motor etc. 

There was very little in the way of thermal activity and any we found were weak and only allowed us to maintain height. We were only 30m from the slope and did manage to get a little lift from the tinyest amout of breeze there was.

We did have a good couple of hours flying and Clive decided to go home. By this time a sea breeze had picked up and so Josh and I decided to move over to the slope and fly from there.

Check out the following video of the thermal soaring section of the day. Part 2 of the video will be available soon.