Sorry, LJ, but you seen to be about as well informed about Air Cadet gliding as the rest of the RAF, including the 2FTS brain trust.
If you go back and peruse the 2012 report, you'll see that just about every Vigilant base was ruled as unsuitable for conventional winch-launched ops. Some airfields are too small to winch launch, others (like St Athan) have had stuff built on them and/or have airspace restrictions, or would pose a hazard to other activities. Station commanders also get quite upset when cables and drogue chutes start ripping airfield fixtures out of the ground. (This has included a radar on at least one occasion.) Similarly, it can get scary to see falling cables and strops hitting powered aircraft or, God forbid, helicopters. Convention Air Cadet gliding sites, using winches, require a good sized patch of flat land, in good condition, free from obstructions, with little to no concurrent activity. Not much of that about these days. Vigilants, on the other hand. can fit in quite easily with other activity on the airfield.
With the exception of a slack handful sqns from 2 Welsh Wing, nobody is within 90mins of Llanbedr, Mona and Valley. The wing's centre of gravity is along the border. Are you really going to ask volunteer instructors (presumably from South Wales or Merseyside) to drive 4-5hrs to get there and fly? It's not the RAF, where you can just post people. These are people living in the real world.
As for Aberporth, 636 was there for about 5 years, before being chucked out when the runway was extended and it became West Wales Airport and a hub for UAV development, which means that it's normally NOTAMed as a no-go area.
Last edited by Cat Funt; 28th Mar 2016 at 01:51.