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.


Tuesday 5 May 2015

Hollein Thermal Instinct F5J

Well after months of umming and ahhing, I've finally found a thermal soarer for this season to fly from the flat field, and the slope, specifically Meio Common, on those almost windless days. You know the ones, the sun is shining, the birds are twittering, you're sat there on the grass enjoying the sunshine and taking in the views of the Welsh valley's, whilst waiting for a puff of wind to come along in which to launch your pride and joy.

Well now I will be able to assemble my 2.85m Hollein Thermal Instinct F5J. By all the accounts I've read, Hollein produce first class balsa kits, and the gentleman I am buying this from, who I think said has 60 years building experience, agrees with this. And with his building experience, I'm expecting a cracking model.

Here's some video of someone elses Thermal Instinct.


6 comments:

  1. Just ordered one! Patiently waiting for It to arrive in the us from Germany !

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  2. Mine flies nice, I'm sure you won't be disappointed Paul.

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  3. Very excited! wondering if the 8 servos will need a special Bec added. I need to research this.

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  4. 8 servo's? I have 4 for the 4 x ailerons, 1 x for flaps, 1 x for elevator & 1 x for rudder. Does yours have 2 x flap servo's? All the servo's are micro and seem to be sufficient for the job. After all, it's a floater and no real resistance against them.

    I bought mine second hand and already built. The guy who built it wired the two aileron servo's in each wing into each other, so they couldn't be operated separately. Wired separately into their own channel, this configuration is ideal for Crow/Butterfly where you can have the inboard ailerons used as spoilerons whilst the outboard give you roll control still.

    I'm using a single 60A ESC/BEC.

    I hope this helps.

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  5. Haven't received it yet Chuck, but the plan is for 6 separate servos in the wing. Well see. what is the flying weight for your ship with what battery?

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  6. Do you know Paul, I've never weighed it. I guess as I didn't build it, I didn't need to know what the weight is. It does fly well though, as do all the Hollein models.

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