On July 5, 2015, the VMPRA held a Q500 and Sports pylon race at Werribee. Despite some pretty ordinary weather leading up to this day, the Sunday turned out to be a clear, mostly sunny day. Some stronger winds picked up in the middle of the day but dropping off again towards the end.
The Werribee Model Aircraft Association members were very welcoming and did a great job of manning pylon #1 and the catering.
There was quite a good group of competitors assembled especially considering some regular Q500 pilots being over in the Czech Republic for the F3D world championships.
There were 9 Q500 pilots and 4 sports pilots. The sports planes were a mix of a Trainer, Stik, EF-1 Pogo and a sports Q500 model.
This was the last event for the 2014-2015 season championship for Q500.
The final standing are:
1st – John Schmidli 2nd – James Hurley
3rd – Jim Orenshaw
John Schmidli won this championship for the 3rd year running with team mate James Hurley slipping into 2nd place and with Jim Orenshaw being in the Czech Republic, he managed to hang onto 3rd Place. Congratulations to all the place gets.
Trophies will be presented at the AGM to be held on August 1, 2015 at the Marong (Bendigo) event. This event will be the 1st of the new season so it’s a big reset and the championship is open for all to participate in.
F3D World Championship – Czech Republic – July 7-11, 2015
There has been a huge build up and preparation for all the competitors for this year’s world championship for the F3D pylon racing class. A good size contingent of pilots, callers and support crews and family members where there for the Australian and New Zealand teams.
It was fascinating watching the live web cams, as we could see a little of what was going on and tanks to all who sent photos, reports and snippets of information back for us to enjoy.
Congratulations to all who participated. Although conditions looked to be tough, well done to the Australian team for their 2nd place.
Team NEW ZEALAND – TBC (unkown at time of publishing)
Individual Places
Chris Callow – 5th Place
Leigh Hocken – 8th Place
Tyler Mees – 12th Place
Bea Murphy – 14th Place
Daniel Arapakis – 3rd Place (Junior Competition) & 22nd – Senior Place
Tom Wetherill – 32nd
Next Event
Our next race event is at the Marong field near Bendigo on August 1-2, 2015. This will be the 1st event for the new 2015/2016 championship season and there will also be our AGM on the Saturday night which is usually held at the caravan park. More details will be posted closer to then.
Event Report – John Schmidli
Photos – John Schmidli
The written content in this post is accurate to the best of my/our knowledge at the time of publishing. It is written from my perspective and reflects how I have experienced this event. Photos published as feature images are selected purely for their quality, general interest or topicality. They are chosen from a pool of photos taken by myself and others when time permits. If a perspective is not being represented, I am more than happy to publish any written content or photos that are supplied to me provided it is fair and reasonable.
Sounds like a tough day flying over 12 hours with stops for excessive wind to make up rounds from day 1. See below for Tom’s Day 2 report.
Tom’s Report – Day 2
Hi everyone:
After 5 days of practice is very hot conditions – racing started yesterday. The goal is to complete up to 15 Rounds over 3 to 4 days.
The racing started yesterday, but only one round was completed due to heavy rain. Most of the afternoon was spent inside the very impressive pit area marquee sheltering.
We started racing again at 8 am this morning and continued until 8pm tonite. However, the conditions today changed from mild in the morning – to be very windy and cold in the afternoon. There was another break as the storm passed through and then racing continued. As a result, we have seen many extremes in weather – which makes a big challenge for tuning engines and racing.
In addition to the challenges associated with the weather, we are racing far from home and things are sometimes “different” from what we expect. The timing system takes some time to get used to, the cut judges are very diligent and other penalties are handed out to pilots and callers who step outside the designated pilot box or are perceived to launch before the flag drops completely. Lastly, there has been a fairly high rate of carnage due to mid-airs. Stuart Inoue from Japan had already lost two models by Round 4.
So what does it all mean… I have not had enough time to look at all the details, but here are some initial observations:
Italy – Carol Perella was in first place after four rounds.
Venezuela – Good friend Gabriel Tahan was in second place after four rounds.
Czech – The Czech team appear to be the first place (team) at present with some very impressive performances from their interesting looking models.
USA – Gino Del Ponte from the USA set a new World Record in Round One and backed it up in Round Two. However, since that time cuts and other factors seem to have come into play. Former World Champion from the USA Randy Bridge scored 2 x 200’s in the first two rounds, but has since been flying very well. The other USA team member, Gary Freeman, was also experiencing some initial problems but appears to have got on top of the issues.
Australia – Chris Callow has been pushing very hard, but does not seem to have the pace advantage that he experienced in 2013. Leigh Hocken, Beau Murphy, Tyler Mees and Daniel Arapakis are doing well – but the Australia team are not dominating like they have in the past. Very hard to come over here to compete with the locals…
New Zealand – I had a good run in Round 1, but got two cuts. In Round 2 (on the first day) the rain came down – so we got a refly today. During the refly the muffler in the pipe broke after about 4 laps – perhaps due to the stress of the high temperatures from the practice time. I was able to manage to limp around and get a score – better than a 200! My Round 3 flight was immediately after Round 2, so fortunately I had a backup ready to go. However, 1 cut hurt the score. The engine ran perfect – so a prop change was made (thanks AD) for Round 4 to get some more speed. The weather was stable for Round 4 but the wind got very strong in Round 5 so I flew conservatively and posted times. The weather front that came through caught many people out – but I changed the compression and posted two more scores.
In summary, a very challenging WC so far. We are only half way through the competition and a decision will be made tomorrow morning on how many rounds will be flown. There are many issues that the organisers have to deal with – including having enough fuel on hand to complete the competition. I was able to sell back the excess fuel that I had J.
It is a lot of hard work, changeling – but is very rewarding when things work out. We finished the day with a very enjoyable dinner at a local Italian restaurant near our hotel.
Tom
08/07/2015 – Day 1
Only 1.5 rounds ran due to rain.
Australian Team Photos
Daniel & Andrew Arapakis
NZ News – 07/07/2015 – Tom Wetherill
Today was the official opening ceremony – that included a very impressive air/aerobatic show courtesy of full size a Red Bull air race plane – just for us. It was a local Czech hero and after the show, he landed and chatted with people. When he left – he took off – and then flew banked at 90 degrees at a very low level between the control tower and a hangar with the smoke system going!!!
The weather has again been very hot and well into the 30’s and today each team had allocated timed sessions on the course. This gave the opportunity for both the teams and the course workers to get their systems sorted. The timing system is different to what we are used to – it was not fully automated. There is a countdown clock, then the flagman waves you off and the timers start from the flagman. The complex system that was trialled previously in 2009 that included cut lights has been abandoned.
The Australian team was first up (as it is run in alphabetical order). However, on the first flight of the day, current World Champion Chris Callow crashed, which was a big surprise to everyone. The rest of the Australian team did quite well but times were not posted.
We did not get to run until later in the afternoon and 2 of 3 models ran well. One did not like the heat and stopped after a few laps. However, this proved to be a common problem and others including current Junior World Champion Emil Broberg, some of the Dutch team, Japanese team, USA team, etc also had DNF’s during practice.
Tomorrow is the first day of competition, and there will be a big change in the weather as rain is forecast and cold weather should arrive on Thursday. Many challenges and hard work ahead.