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.


Saturday 9 July 2016

Ballistic Lift on Mickey's

So my holiday in Cornwall didn't go to plan. I spent the first two days staying with my son, then I headed to St Agnes where I'd booked a camp site.

Ten minutes drive away from my sons home and driving past Cornwall Services on the A30, the rain started. So when I arrived by the coastguard hut at St Agnes Head, the rain was driving in with the 30 mph wind, which by the way was too southerly to be able to fly anyway.

I looked at the forecast and the next day, Wednesday was also rain, Thursday was being shown as showery, with Friday being the only day forecast to be dry, but I was going to head home on Friday anyway. So I made the decision to abandon this trip and drive home.

As Friday was looking pretty flyable, I met up with Mark for a session on Mickeys at the Bwlch, and after the walk up to the slope, the wind strength was better than we had expected and I was getting readings with maximum gusts up to 36 mph, but as the session progressed, so the wind became stronger, eventually getting readings of 44 mph. Stonking!

Mark began by flying his Pitbull, but it landed with a bit of a thud and one flap servo seemed to lock in the down position, which he couldn't shift. Fortunately he'd also brought along the Schwing, which was absolutely loving the big air conditions.

I flew my FVK Signal, which also loved the conditions at first when we had 35 mph plus winds, but by the time it was in the mid 40's, it was too much for it. Fortunately I'd brought along the EPP 60 Polecat, which was flying very nicely thank you.

And just to prove it, here is the video.


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