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Cwmbran is a popular place for shoppers with 1000s heading here to bag a bargain each week while enjoying the undercover shops and free parking. But the town is also becoming a favourite destination for paragliders. Did you spot the paragliders flying above Cwmbran last weekend?
Declan Fleming, a teacher from Bristol, travelled to Mynydd Maen on Saturday and filmed this 24 second video of his flight. Listen to his excitement and enjoy this bird’s eye view of the town. Declan told Cwmbran Life why the town is such a good place to fly over.
“Gliders by definition are always falling … paragliders do so at approximately one metre per second. To stay airborne we rely on rising air, air that is rising at at least one metre per second. The two most common ways in which this can happen and that we can take advantage of are either:
1. Dynamic lift – air meets an obstacle and has to rise over it
2. Thermals – warm (often moist) bubbles of air that rise like invisible hot air balloons“Cwmbran is not exactly an epic site but when it’s good there, it’s very very good. We fly two sites – one west of Greenmeadow wood, we call it ‘Fairwater’, which faces south east and one on the south side of Mynydd Twyn-glas above the reservoir, we call it ‘Mountain Air’, which faces more to the south. Both sites were being flown last Saturday.
“The wind on Saturday was south easterly which brought air up the hill and was strong enough to keep the wings up but not too strong so that our wings couldn’t fly forwards. Wind speeds over 18mph aren’t much fun on a paraglider unless you have a sporty one that goes a bit faster.
“The town is upwind of the hill and all that concrete and glass heats up very effectively. The air wants to rise but often doesn’t do so until it meets a ‘trigger’ which forces it to go upwards and here it is released. Rising topography is good so the air from the town gets drawn towards the hill and releases giving us thermals as well as the dynamic lift.
“Many thermals are triggered further upwind as well, especially later on as the town heats up more so we can push out front from the hill and connect with rising air over the town. In the summer towards the end of the day, the warm town continues to have very buoyant air over it which is released in a process known as restitution.
“So yes … on the face of it, Cwmbran has a lot going for it as a paragliding site. And yes, that was me in the clip getting excited by how good the conditions were :).”