Event Report – Cohuna 2022

Back on the 13th & 14th of August. The VMPRA returned to Cohuna, the home of pylon racing in Victoria. Below are the results and Season Championship standings, plus a link to a gallery of images from the weekend.

Results

Class – FA1

Places:
1st Leigh Hocken
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd Gary Davidson

Fastest Time (Red Box): 58.98 Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors: 5

Class – F3T

Places:
1st Jim Orenshaw
2nd Barry Murphy
3rd Andrew Davies

Fastest Time (Red Box): 69.13 Beau Murphy
No. of competitors: 8

Class – Q500

Places:
1st Tom Wetherill
2nd Tom Allen
3rd Mike Kellet

Fastest Time (Red Box): 89.10 Tom Wetherill
No. of competitors: 9

Season Championship

This was the first race for the 2022/2023 season championship.

FA1

1st – Leigh Hocken
2nd – Tom Wetherill
3rd – Gary Davidson

F3T

1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – Barry Murphy
3rd – Andrew Davies

Q500

1st – Tom Wetherill
2nd – Tom Allan
3rd – Mike Kellet

Next Race

The next race meet will be on September 17-18 at Rick Townsends field in Newbridge.
I hope to see you all there.

 

Report  – John Schmidli
Photos – Tom Allan & John Schmidli

Please note: We are looking for people willing to write event reports or photograph the events. This is important and valuable to pylon racing in Victoria, Australia and Worldwide, as this site has a vast readership.

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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.

Quick Reference

Event Report – Cohuna – State Championships 2019

What a fantastic club to go pylon racing at. With so much enthusiasm from the club members to help man the pylons, it was an absolute pleasure to race at Cohuna (the home of VIC Pylon) again.

Results

Class – FA1

Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Brian Steele
3rd Leigh Hocken

Fastest Time: 59.69 Andrew Davies
No. of competitors: 3

Class – F3T 

Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Jim Orenshaw
3rd Brian Steele

Fastest Time: 65.10 Andrew Davies
No. of competitors: 7

Class – Q500

Places:
1st Jim Orenshaw
2nd John Schmidli
3rd Allan Swift

Fastest Time: 93.79 John Schmidli
No. of competitors: 6

Check out the full results>>>

Gallery>>>

Season Championship

This was the first event for the new 2019-2020 season championship.

FA1

1st – Andrew Davies
2nd – Brian Steele
3rd – Leigh Hocken

F3T

1st – Andrew Davies
2nd – Jim Orenshaw
3rd – Brian Steele

Q500

1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – John Schmidli
3rd – Allan Swift

Check Out Season Championship >>>

Next Race

Newbridge (Rick’s Field) Oct 12-13, 2019

Field Location >>>

Proposed schedule:

  • Friday (11/10/2019):
    • Course set-up
    • Practice
  • Saturday (12/10/2019):
    • 8:45am Entries closed / Field Closed / Pilots Briefing / Everyone to assist with Timing System set-up etc.
    • 9:30am Q500
    • Midday FA1
    • Afternoon F3T
  • Sunday (13/10/2019):
    • Q500
    • FA1
    • F3T

 Accommodation:

  • Camping is available on-site (but there is limited water for showers).  Shower facilities are also available locally in Newbridge.
  • Accommodation is available at Marong and Newbridge.

Check Out Complete Calendar >>>

Report  – John Schmidli

Please note: We are looking for people willing to write event reports or photograph the events. This is an important and valuable to pylon racing in Victoria, Australia and Worldwide as this site has a vast viewership.

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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.

Quick Reference

Event Results
Photos
Season Championship
Event Calendar

Cohuna – 2018 VMAA State Championships

It’s was great going back to the home of pylon racing in Victoria, 41 years from the first pylon event at this great club. We held the VMAA State Championship on this weekend which included the 2nd F3D Australian Team Trial for next years World Championships in Queensland, Australia.

The Cohuna club always provides a full compliment of helps which is absolutely necessary for running the team trials on the 10 lap course. What a great job all the helpers did. Thanks to the Cohuna Club.

We started with 2 rounds of Q500 after a little delay getting the timing system sorted. Once the Q500 races finished, it was into the half an hour of flight testing for the F3D and then 5 rounds were run in nice sunny and warm conditions. later in the day, F400 ran 3 rounds before running out of time.

Sunday started with the remaining 3 rounds of F3D followed by Q500 and the F400 after lunch. 

The event was a great success with Andrew Arapakis and Andrew Davies CDing for the weekend plus Allan Swift running the timing systems with help from Daniel Arapakis. Great job everybody

Check out the event photo gallery>>> 

Results

Class – FA1

Places:
1st Leigh Hocken
2nd Beau Murphy
3rd Ranjit Phelan

Fastest Time: 55.90 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors: 10
10 Lap Course

Results

Class – F400
This was a clean sweep from Team Jacobsen.

Places:
1st Shaun Jacobsen
2nd Jarrod Jacobsen
3rd Tom Jacobsen

Fastest Time: 63.66 – Shaun Jacobsen
No. of competitors: 8
10 Lap Course

Class – Q500
This was a smaller field than usual but it was great having Robin Gray back flying pylon.

Places:
1st Jim Orenshaw
2nd John Schmidli
3rd Allan Swift

Fastest Time: 90.13 – Jim Orenshaw
No. of competitors: 4
10 Lap Course

Check out the full results>>>

Season Championship

This was only the second event for this new championship season. Being an VMAA Championships and a F3D team selection trial, it was a 10 lap course with a good amount of cut judges. We done Cohuna club!

FA1

Leigh Hocken jumps up from 8th to 2nd position after this convincing win.

1st – Andrew Davies
2nd – Leigh Hocken
3rd – Barry Murphy

F400

1st – Andrew Davies
2nd – Jim Orenshaw
3rd – Gary Davidson

Q500

1st – John Schmidli
2nd – Jim Orenshaw
3rd – Allan Swift

Check Out Season Championship >>>

Next Race

The very next race is at the Westernport Club where there’ll be a Sports & Q500 race on Oct 14. There is always a great turn out at this event and a heap of fun had.

The next 2 day/3 class event is being held on Nov 10-11 at Munro.

There have been quite a few changes to the calendar of late so make sure you have them all in your diary so as to not miss out.

Check Out Complete Calendar >>>

Event Report and 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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.

Quick Reference

Event Results
Photos
Season Championship
Event Calendar

Cohuna 2015 – Event Report

Flying at Cohuna located near the Vic boarder close to Echuca and our famous Murray River yet again proved a fantastic event. All who participated had a ripper weekend enjoying great camaraderie, great hospitality by the host club, great racing and perfect weather.

Friday saw several modelers preparing and fine-tuning in perfect conditions and we all found it very hard to believe the weather forecast for the weekend was 20 & 21 degrees with light winds. Well the weather Gods rolled up and proved that Willy Weather was spot on the money!

Hot Stuff Model Fuels

Almost zero degrees at sunrise saw a few dusty pilots and callers after several beers and Shiraz at the local pub. Racing commenced around 10:00am with 4 rounds of F400 and John Schmidli’s maiden flight racing his new El Bandito in his infamous striking green artwork. Probably the most significant point noting here is that this new model was actually drawn up by John and I’m sure a very proud moment upon take off and also only a few seconds off the fastest times of the weekend.

Racing was tight and the usual dynamic duo of Brian Steele and Andrew Davies also commonly recognized as Laurel and Hardy, flying hard all morning producing great times. As usual the ever reliable Glenn and Gary flew great with Glenn posting the quickest time of the day with 68.86 seconds. Again John’s third flight was on the money and only a few seconds behind. Great to see George Angelov returning back to racing who will be picking up the pace over the coming events. Jimmy donated engine parts to Steeley who reportedly put a liner back in with a hammer and test flying till dark– on ya Brian!

Q500 was next with a variety of pilot experience. Again numbers were down as the regulars struggled to attend due to work commitments. Jimmy was in fine form posting the quickest time of the day of 97.60 seconds closely followed by John. Andrew posted his PB of 104.49 seconds and showed a few signs of some improvement after a grilling from Dannmann “pull it in Dad pull it in– where the hell are you going”.

Great to see Alan Swift at the event giving F5D a go, a few minor technical improvements will see Alan in the mix at AMPRA.

The club hosted a great BBQ lunch as always and a few pilots took the opportunity throughout the afternoon basking in the sun on the take off mats whilst waiting for take offs’ and landing by real size aircraft at the nearby aerodrome. Great to see James Hurley and his wonderful family visiting for a few hours as spectators enjoyed the great weather and flying!

F3D followed the lunch break with T-shirt’s on and light winds. With 6 pilots in the mix, the Minute Masters powered by the ever reliable Murphy combo of prop’s, set-up and tuning saw Daniel recording his PB and fastest time of the day of 58.96 seconds and Baz in second place. Dan has packed his favourite 3 models away for the WC but raced his number 4. Looks like the Murphy fuz and the Big Bruce wing are a great match! Lots of fun and friendly rivalry also reported on the line with Andrew D, Steeley and Baz all in fine form!

The day ended with a few cold beers followed by a great meal in the local pub.

Day 2, the sunrise was spectacular on the field and a great pic posted by John as the fresh scent of Kransky’s, rashes of bacon, eggs and toast drifted through a few lucky pit areas.

F400 kicked off the racing day in perfect weather conditions with Andrew Davies in the lead posting very consistent sub 70’s times. Glenn yet again flew the best time of the day of 66.85 seconds also recording the fastest time of the weekend. Unfortunately Gary lost his new model GR7 due to technical issues.

The F400 event ended with great racing all weekend as final results for the top 3 were only 2.5 seconds apart after 8 rounds. Subsequently Glenn holds a strong position in 1st place for the season championships with only one event remaining in the VMPRA calendar.

Q500 was up next with Jimmy and John posting great times in round 5. Round 6 saw Jimmy posting 95.51 seconds being the fastest time of the weekend then moving into a win. John cruised into second place with Andrew posting his PB in round 8 and holding onto a solid 3rd place.

After lunch saw F3D flying in great sunny conditions. Cohuna members and modelers alike clearly were enjoying the afternoon racing and all judges doing a fine job the whole weekend.

Unfortunately in round 5 and first heat of the afternoon both Glenn and Brian had a thumping mid air after flying around #1 destroying both models leaving only 4 pilots for the last 3 rounds. Baz propped up and pulled it in around one and recorded great times firming up second place for the weekend as Andrew stepped up the pace in his Dannmann Veyron. Daniel posted the best time of the day with 59.89 seconds on his last flight of the day and resulting in his first win in F3D.

The day concluded with presentation time and lots of fun had by all. Baz also had great words at the wrap up, with great wishes and fine words of encouragement for Dannmann as the journey, practice and preparations are all now paying off.  Well done Baz as your 1st Class commitment to F3D and your contributions have produced 1st Class results! Dannmann responded with a heart felt smile thanking Uncle Baz for all his hard work done in the background to produce success.  The VMPRA season champs are almost over for the year and now Daniel extends his F3D lead by 4 points with one more race to go at his favourite field!

Well done to all pilots, callers, members, helpers and to the famous Cohuna club who made the effort to attend, as the weekend was definitely one to remember!

Event Report Writer – Anonymous

ED – Thanks to Anonymous for a great event report. I’m always looking for additional help with reports, photos other items for addition to the website

Check out the event photo gallery>>>

Results – FA1

Places:
1st Daniel Arapakis
2nd Barry Murphy
3rd Andrew Davies

Fastest Time: 58.96 – Daniel Arapkis
No. of competitors: 6
Course – 10.5 Laps

 

Results – F400

Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Glenn Matthews
3rd Brian Steele

Fastest Time: 66.85 – Glenn Matthews
No. of competitors: 7
Course – 10.5 Laps

 

Results – Q500

Places:
1st Jim Orenshaw
2nd John Schmidli
3rd Andrew Arapakis

Fastest Time: 95.51 – Jim Orenshaw
No. of competitors: 5
Course – 10.5 Laps

 

Check out the full results>>>

Season Championship

The following is how the season championship stands currently.

FA1
So we are down to only 1 event left for FA1 for the 2014-2015 seasons championship which is to be a big event all round at Munro. No change in the order with the top 3 positions but Daniel has firmed up his position at the top with the only threat to him being Glenn only 4 points behind.

1 – Daniel Arapakis
2 – Glenn Matthews
3 – Andrew Davies

F400 – Results
Again, no change at the top 3 positions but all of them have a mathematical chance of wining the F400 season championship with only the Munro AMPRA event to go.

1 – Glenn Matthews
2 – Andrew Davies
3 – Brian Steele

Q500 – Results

For Q500, there are still 2 more events to go being AMPRA at Munro and then a 1 day event at Werribee in July. John Schmidli is now 17 points ahead but both Tom Wetherill and Jim Orenshaw are still in the hunt. James Hurley has now dropped from 3rd to 4th position after missed a couple of events.

1 – John Schmidli
2 – Tom Wetherill
3 – Jim Orenshaw

Full Championship Results>>>

Next Event

It’s not long to go and it’s a big one with the next event being the AMPRA Champs and also an F5D World Championship selection event. It will also be the last time we’ll see some if not all of the F3D World Championship team before they head off to the Czech Republic for the F3D World Champs. So this will be the event to be at with what should be a good gathering of local and interstate flyers at the best field on our calendar. Andrew Arapakis will also be putting on one of his renowned feeds on the Saturday night at the field but numbers will be limited. An email will be going around to get numbers for this so stay tuned.

For more information on the AMPRA Championship and F5D election event.

Check Out Complete Calender >>>

Event Report – Anonymous.
Additional content – 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.

Quick Reference

Event Result
Photo Gallery
Season Championship
Event Calender

Hot Stuff Model Fuels

May Update

It’s been a bit of a break but we are off to racing again in less than a weeks time. Back to one of our favorites, Cohuna.

This will be run to our usual format – F400, Q500 and FA1 will be run. We should get 8 rounds of each in and have a great weekends racing!

Also coming up is the AMPRA Championship to be held in Munro on the Queens birthday weekend (June 6th, 7th and 8th – if required) .

Not only is this our national championship for our usual classes of F400, Q500 & FA1, but is will be a team selection event for the next F5D world championships in 2016. For more information on this event, go to this link on the AMPRA website.

John Schmidli

Cohuna 2014 – Event report

With the much anticipated Cohuna pylon event, came an influx of competitors from interstate. Starting with Queenslanders, Chris Callow, Steve Turna, Tyler and Warren Mees arriving in Melbourne and making their way up to Cohuna on the Thursday.  Friday saw the majority of other competitors arriving with much F3D testing done during the day. Later on Friday, South Australians, John Yianni, Tom, Shaun and Jarrod Jacobsen Arrived. Regular competitor, Ranjit Phelan from New South Wales also attended.

Hot Stuff Model Fuels

This event was shaping up to be a very exciting one with this being the final of the Australian F3D World Championship team selection trials where at the end of the weekend, positions on the team would be confirmed.  Already confirmed was Daniel Arapakis as junior representative and of course, Chris Callow as defending World Champion.

The weather for the weekend was shaping up to be perfect with fine, warm and light wind conditions.

As the team selection was the most important part of the weekend, F3D was to take priority. Saturday started with 3 rounds of Q500 to be used as a settling in phase for the pylon and lap judges. Refueling out on the line, meant that 3 rounds was completed fairly quickly. Then it was on to the main event. After 5 rounds of F3D, Saturday was finished off with 3 rounds of F400.

Sunday started with the final 4 rounds of F3D and a presentation of trophies. The rest of the event consisted of 4 rounds each of Q500 and F400.

It must be said that this event would not have been run so successfully if it wasn’t for the efforts of a large number of Cohuna members helping. The 10 lap course needed 4 people timing, 4 #1 pylon judges and 1 judge each on the #2 and #3 pylons.

Check out the event photo gallery>>>

F3D report

The final event to select the team that will represent Australia at the 2015 F3D World Championships was held on the weekend of 4 – 5 October 2014.  The event was held at the Cohuna Model Flying Club’s field in Cohuna, Victoria.  Cohuna has been the “home” of pylon racing in Australia for approximately 30 years and the club turned out in full force to provide their support by working the course and serving up hot meals all weekend.

Three Australian “team” positions were up for grabs.  Selection of the team is based on the average scores from the best two (of three) designated Team Trial events.  This year the designated events included AMPRA, the Queensland or the Victorian State Championships and the Cohuna Team Trial.  Chris Callow had already earned a position as returning World Champion and Daniel Arapakis had earned a position as Junior.

AMPRA and the respective State Championships had already been held and based on the results for the first two events the people that were almost certainly assured to be on the team were Beau Murphy and Tyler Mees. The pilots in contention for the remaining position on the team were Ranjit Phelan, Leigh Hocken and Steve Turna.

Nine rounds were to be flown over two days – with five rounds planned for Saturday and four rounds on Sunday.  Most of the competitors arrived a day early to tune for the conditions.  Chris Callow attended the event to help Leigh and Steve (but did not fly).

During Friday practice – it was apparent that some contestants were having difficulty tuning for the conditions.  Winter was over and temperatures were increasing – so it was time for sunscreen instead of jackets and beanies.

On race day, Q500 was run in the morning to make sure that the course workers and timing system was working properly.  F3D did not start until mid-day and when the racing began – Beau got off to a very good start, seemingly cruising to get reasonable scores.  However, it became apparent that the conditions were not good for very fast times.  Ranjit and Steve had problems, with both pilots getting 200’s in the first two rounds.

By the end of the first day – Beau and Tyler were both running well, but Ranjit, Leigh and Steve had their backs against the wall with 2 x 200’s and they could not afford to make any errors.

On the second day, the final four rounds were flown in the morning.  Once racing began – Tyler, Leigh and Ranjit really stepped up their performance.  Leigh posted a very impressive time of 55.44!

In Round 7, Beau Murphy had a problem with takeoff and hit the ground.  The next round his model was unstable – but he still managed a 57.  In the last round – he had difficulty controlling the model and shut down.  This gave him 3 x 200’s.

Tyler had increased his pace – posting 2 x 57 second times.  Ranjit also posted some good scores, but was just edged out by Leigh who had made a very strong finish.  The final results for the event were – Tyler 420.5, Leigh 421.5 and Ranjit 425.0.

Stephen Turna also recovered well and posted some good scores on the second day to finish fourth with a score of 426.0.  Following behind was a group that included Daniel Arapakis, Bryan Steele, Tom Wetherill and Glenn Matthews.

The Australian Team will be as follows:

  • Chris Callow (returning World Champion) Kevin Callow – Caller
  • Tyler Mees, Warren Mees – Caller (average 58.89)
  • Beau Murphy, Barry Murphy – Caller (average 58.96)
  • Leigh Hocken, Vern Gibson – Caller (average 59.18)
  • Daniel Arapakis (Junior), Andrew Arapakis – Caller

F3D Report – Thanks to Tom Wetherill

The team selection table:

 See Additional Info >>>

(L-R) Tyler & Warren Mees, Leigh Hocken, Vern Gibson & Barry and Beau Murphy

The Australian 2015 F3D World Champs Team Qualifiers with their Callers.
Tyler & Warren Mees, Leigh Hocken & Vern Gibson, Beau & Barry Murphy.
This was a hard-fought set of team trials. Congratulations to these guys!

Andrew & Daniel Arapakis

Daniel Arapakis with his father Andrew will represent Australia
at the 2015 World Champs as a junior. Look out F3D World…..

F3D Results – Cohuna

Places:
1st Tyler Mees
2nd Leigh Hocken
3rd Ranjit Phelan

Fastest Time: 55.44 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors: 14
Course – 10 Laps

F400 report

This class was hotly contested with SA visitors, Shaun and Jarrod Jacobsen and their very nicely turned out AR-6 models. Lilydale’s pairing of Gary Davidson and Jim Orenshaw were both relieved of having to take home one of their models each. Tom Jacobsen was also lucky having sustained some damage when involved in a post-racing incident with both wing and tail damage possibly having clipped James Hurley’s undercarriage. No one actually saw this happen but there was some evidence of this on James’s model.

F400 results

Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Shaun Jacobsen
3rd Ranjit Phelan

Fastest Time: 63.81 – Andrew Davies
No. of competitors: 13
Course – 10 Laps

Q500 report

We had a new addition to the ranks of Q500 pylon with Andrew Arrapkis flying in this class for the first time this weekend.  He had his son Daniel calling for him which is a bit of a role reversal. He also improved his time considerably over the weekend having started with a 128.77 and the last race on Sunday he got a very respectable 106.55 and came 5th out of 10 competitors. Well done Andrew!

Q500 results

Places:
1st Jim Orenshaw
2nd John Schmidli
3rd Tom Wetherill

Fastest Time: 93.78 – Jim Orenshaw
No. of competitors: 10
Course – 10 Laps

Check out the full results>>>

Season Championship

We are getting on to the end of the 1st half of the season championship.

FA1

There’s been a swap in positions at the top with Ranjit Phelan now in 1st position and Brian Steele now in 2nd. Tom Wetherill remains in 3rd place.

1 – Ranjit Phelan
2 – Brian Steele
3 – Tom Wetherill

F400

There has not been any change in the top 3 positions for F400.

1 – Ranjit Phelan
2 – Brian Steele
3 – Glen Matthews

Q500

Things have tightened at the top with James Hurley and John Schmidli drawing with 34 points each. There are some big changes further down with John Yianni moving from position 12 up to 6, Les Spaltman going from position 10 to 7 and David Axon moved from position 18 to 9.

1 – James Hurley 
2 – John Schmidli
3 – Tom Wetherill

Full Championship Results>>>

Refurbished trailer

A much overdue refurbishment of our pylon racing trial was carried out prior to the event. A huge thanks must go out to Andrew Arapakis for taking this upon himself and organising this work. It was looking great at Cohuna and has now got a new lease on life. Thanks Andrew!

Next Event

The next event and the last for the year is November 15-16 at Hamilton.

Also, if anybody is interested, the Nationals are on in April 2015 up in Brisbane.

2015 Nats Program >>>
2015 Nats Entry Form >>>

Event Report & photos: John Schmidli & F3D report by Tom Wetherill.
Editing : Caroline 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.

Quick Reference

Event Result
Photo Gallery
Season Championship
Event Calender

Hot Stuff Model Fuels

September Update

The Cohuna event is at the end of this week and it’s an exciting one with being the last of the F3D team trials for the Australian Team Selection for the 2015 World Champs. It’s also been a reasonable break since the last event.

The Cohuna club has let us know that there will be breakfast and lunch available on the Saturday and Sunday. There will also be camping available out at the field.

We look forward to seeing everybody at Cohuna.

In the meantime, follow this link to see a slideshow of photos take by a Werribee club member and the recent Q500/Sport race day. Youtube Clip >>>

John Schmidli

Cohuna August 2013 – Event report

On the 17th & 18th of August we ventured up to Cohuna, a town up near the Victorian and New South Wales border between Kerang and Echuka, for a weekend of pylon racing (classes – FA1, F400 and Q500). This was the first event since the F3D World Championships in Holland that some members of the VMPRA were involved in.

The last event at Bendigo was severely affected by rain and only the F400 class managed to race 4 rounds. This weekend was looking also to be badly effected, not by rain but by very strong winds. Those who traveled up to Cohuna on Friday to do some test flights encountered extremely strong winds. Not much testing was done that afternoon.

In the morning, after even stronger winds during the night, the wind died down and was a lot calmer. Due to the uncertainty of the weather and the fact that there was a forecast for more strong winds on Sunday, we needed to get a good amount of rounds in on the Saturday. We started with FA1 and Q500 together as these classes missed out at the Bendigo event all together.

We flew 5 rounds of FA1 and Q500 during the morning and after lunch, we flew 5 rounds of F400 leaving only a planned 4 rounds of each class for Sunday, weather permitting.

That night, after dinner, the VMPRA AGM was held at a room at the Cohuna Hotel. Members will receive minute of the meeting in the coming weeks.

Sunday morning wasn’t too bad to start with but the winds gradually increased in strength throughout the morning. After 2 rounds of FA1 and Q500, a meeting was held and we agreed to abandon any further racing. We packed up, had lunch, presented trophies and then headed off home early.

Cohuna is a great place for pylon racing and the club provides us with a great deal of support. It was especially good to have enough helpers from the club to man all the pylons including judges for pylon 2 and 3.

FA1

Paces:
1st Barry Murphy
2nd Brian Steel
3rd James Hurley

F400

Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Gary Davidson
3rd Daniel Arapakis

Q500

Places:
1st John Schmidli
2nd Jim Oreshaw
3rd Daniel Arapakis

This event was mostly incident free except for Daniel managing to hit Pylon 2 with his Q500 leaving a trail of polystyrene and balsa strewn across the field. He possibly was followed in his mentors footsteps too closely as Beau Murphy did the same at Munro a short time before the World Championship.

You can view the full result here.

F3D World Championships

In the wrap-up of the World Champs, there has been a lot of information, photos, video etc. added to the official website at www.wcf3d2013.nl/

Congratulations to Chris Callow for taking out the championship once again and to all the Australian & New Zealand team members who took part.

VMPRA Season Championship

Tom receiving the FA1 & F400 2012-2013 season championship trophies.

It’s well and truely off and running after a bit of a fause start due to the Bendigo wash-out. You can compete just by attending as many events as possible and working at building the best set result possible. The championship really rewards consistency.

At this event, the previous championship winners were presented with their awards (Tom Wetherill – FA1 and F400 and John Schmidli – Q500).

Check out the table so far.

Next Event

We are off to Swan Hill on September 14-15. VMPRA hasn’t been to Swan Hill in a long time and it’s always great to get a new location to go racing.

In the last couple of years the Swan Hill club has experienced a real resurgence and they are very keen to have us. There is a group of Swan Hill members that will probably camp at the site and they can also provide up to 8 helpers so this event will be well supported.

They have free on-site camping, a hot shower and toilets and there is likely to be big brekky and lunch at very reasonable prices.

The strip is 50 metres from the pits and the runway is gypsum (no dust) and the club can mow a take-off square and roll it if necessary.

So let’s make this a successful weekend and it would be great to see numbers back up to pre-World Champs numbers.

The championship table has been updated and there is also a photo gallery from this event and you check out the calender for future races.

John Schmidli (Report and Photos).

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August Update

After the excitement of the recent F3D World Championships, it’s time to going racing locally.

We are racing in the quick air at Cohuna on August 17-18.

Gary Davidson & James Hurley (hiding behind his win) - his first time in F3D

We with be running the VMPRA AGM and general meeting on the Saturday night at a venue TBC. It is important to come along to the meeting and support pylon racing in Victoria

Event Report – Cohuna 2012

Tyler & Warren Mees on the way to the line

It was great turning up to the Cohuna field on Saturday morning to a mass of activity, camper-vans, caravans and gazebo’s and the field in the process of being setup. A hive of activity that started the day before with many pilots arriving early to practice; the Cohuna field looked in great condition. To top it off, the weather was spectacular and promised to be good for the whole weekend.

Walking through the pits, it was great to see a good number of competitors, including interstate compeditors, Chris Callow, Tyler Mees, Ranjit Phelan & Tony Howse in attendance for the 3rd F3D team selection trail for the 2013 F3D world championships.

Plane ID - Chris Callow's Voodoo being held high

F3D

After some initial timing equipment setup issues (which were resolved thanks to Kevin Callow), the scene was set for 9 rounds of F3D. As the day went on, the usual suspects rose to the top of the timing sheet with some really fast times being flown. There was a great deal of interest world wide with regular postings of the results on Facebook and many comments posted. As we started a little late and the sun was getting too low, the day’s racing was finished after completing 7 rounds.

We had our usual evening dinner out to talk all things pylon (and the occasional non-related subjects) and after a good night’s sleep (for some), it was back to the field for the remaining 2 rounds. On completion of these rounds the results were:

1st Chris Callow
2nd Ranjit Phelan
3rd Leigh Hocken
See Full Results>>>

AUST WC Team Selection Standings

With the 3rd team trial completed and only the VIC State Champs left, where the 4th trial will be run, this is how the scores look as of 18/9/2012:

Name AMPRA QLD champs Cohuna trial VIC champs Final result
Chris Callow 56.85 56.72 56.78
Leigh Hocken 60.28 62.44 drop 59.92 60.1
Ranjit Phelan 61.54 drop 59.64 57.65 58.64
Frank Cassella 63.41 62.58
Barry Murphy 63.47 140.51
Tyler Mees 65.28 60.42
Beau Murphy 80.9 60.32
Rick Townsend 63.5 63.2 63.35

F400 VIC

After all the excitement of the F3D, we had 7 rounds of F400 to fly. There was the first significant carnage for the weekend with a mid-air between Mike Kellet & Tony Howse. Tony came off 2nd best, but Mike was able to land with just half a horizontal stabilizer. Andrew Davies also lost a plane after impacting the ground during a race.

Gary Davidson & James Hurley (hiding behind his wing - his first time in F3D)

Gary Davidson came 1st making great use of his new Loki, Rick Townsend came 2nd and Tom Wetherill 3rd.
See Full Results>>>

“All in all, this was a great event. Thanks goes out to the Cohuna club for the great food and help all weekend. Another thank you goes to David Axon and Mike Kellet for cut judging for F3D Trials (David’s voice doesn’t carry as far as you would think when he is 100 meters away!). Lastly to starter extraordinaire and all-round good sort, Toni Axon who slugged it out and kept the guys in line for both days.” – (Quote – Terry O’Connor)
Also thanks to Terry and Kim (walking wounded) for the smooth running of the event.

The championship table has been updated and there is also a photo gallery from this event.

The next event is the VIC State Champs at Hamilton on October 20-21, 2012.

John Schmidli