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.


Friday 17 March 2017

Weekend flying forecast 18th/19th March

I was really disappointed with last weekends weather forecast, which said rain for Sunday. So I didn't bother charging model batteries or putting any in the car as I headed over to Michelle's for the weekend.

I awoke on Sunday to a fairly bright day, and as the day progressed, there was still no sign of any rain 😠. However, I was talking to John Farrell on Monday evening in a supermarket car park, where I met him as he was letting me have some lead shot for my L213 project, and he was saying that from his home he couldn't see the tops of the mountains because they were shrouded in cloud. So maybe I couldn't have flown anyway.


So if we are to believe this weekends forecast, we may as well leave the models in their hangars and stay in bed, as the forecast is for rain and more rain.

Saturday - rain all day with a 17 mph westerly.

Sunday - rain all day with a 18 mph west south westerly. However, when I watched the BBC weather forecast on TV this morning, it did look like there may be a chance that this rain could be just showers, and possibly just miss us as it may pass slightly north of us who live around Newport, Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and the lower end of the valleys.  So I would say to keep a model or two charged and ready to go, just in case Sunday proves to be flyable.

My L213 should be ready to fly by Sunday, so I'm going to have him in the car and ready to go in case there is a window in the weather, in which case I shall just head up to Meio Common. I can beat a quicker retreat from there should the weather turn nasty whilst I'm up there.

Last night I was working on the L213 and I made a final check on the CoG, before gluing the radio tray in position. As it turned out, I had to move the tray a little rearward to achieve the correct balance, but I'd already accounted and planned for this.

I also made a cock up when connecting the rudder pull pull wires and forgot to lock the servo arm in place first. Oooops. So I have to pop into my local fishing tackle shop on my way home from work to buy some crimps and re do one of the wires this evening. So an hours work at the most and then finish off programming the TX, charge the batteries and I'm ready to go.

So whatever you're doing, have a good weekend.

Happy flying
Steve

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