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 10 August 2015

Fab weekends flying PSS on the LLeyn

Hi all.

Well what a fab weekends flying that was up near Abersoch on the Lleyn Peninsular!

I arrived around 1.15 PM at Annes place on Friday and set up camp. Mark Kettle and Helen had arrived the day before and were out cycling around Abersoch, and I was joined shortly after by Andy Meade, Thistle and Bramble, the lively dogs.

The wind was very light but Andy and I took a couple of models onto the west facing slope just at the back of Anne's house and had a few minutes easy flying, taking in the glorious sunny, warm weather and the calm glistening Irish Sea.

That evening, we all got together for a beer or two, and have some food over a chin wag. David Gilder turned up showing off his new Airbus in FedEx colours.

Saturday morning arrived with more glorious sunshine but little wind. What wind there was, was coming in from a south westerly direction, so we headed off to Cim Farm, a ten minute drive away. This is a nice little slope with great views of the beach and coastline.

On arrival the breeze was very light, about 5 mph I would guess, and myself along with a few others brought out the light thermal soarers and cruised effortlessly along the slope. But as the day progressed, so the wind increased, until we had probably about 17 mph.

Up went the Jet Provosts, Vulcans and a few other PSS models until Andy Meade launched his very large B52 bomber, which flew very nicely indeed. My Impala also took to the air and performed nicely also.

After the days flying we headed off to dinner at The Ship in Llanbedrog, sunk a couple of beers and chatted about the days flying and the prospects for flying on Sunday.

Sunday morning I peered out of the tent to see drizzle and thick clag. This was not what I wanted to see. Anyway, I prepared the Impala and the EE Lightning and headed back to Cim Farm again.

On arrival the clag had lifted, the wind was blowing at probably around 20 MPH and flying took place straight away with Andy Meade maidening his correx Mig-3, which was a little tail heavy and very pitchy.

All manner of models took to the air, Jet Provosts, Vulcans, Sea Fury's, Hawks, etc etc and everyone had a great time.

I did take plenty of video but it'll take me a few days to work my way through it. I also have to pay for and download the latest version of my video editing software as my older version will not work with Windows 10. So a video will appear at some stage.

I am now looking forward to the next PSSA meet here in S Wales in September. I just hope the weather plays ball as I have been bragging so much about the fabulous slopes down here.

Catch you later fellow flyers.
Steve
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