Q500s ready for take-off
What great weather and fantastic turnout we had for our annual Q500, Sports EF-1 event held at the Werribee Club last Sunday. This event is close to Melbourne and is always a good opportunity for newcomers to pylon, to have a go without travelling too far. At this very event, 12 months ago, a young lad named Daniel Arapakis came along with his trainer and flew pylon for the first time. Fast forward 12 months and he’s winning events flying his Vipers and on this day, test flew his first F400 model.
Six rounds of each class on a 10.5 lap FAI long course was flown so times can be compared to previous events.
Q500
Jim scores 1st place
With 11 competitors, I think this is the most we’ve had in the last 4 years that I’ve been back flying. There was only 4.2 seconds between the place getters’ and only 1 plane came to grief (think Matt and shipping container!). Jim Orenshaw racing his brand new airframe (his own design) and engine combination came first with Daniel Arapakis only 1 second behind.
1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – Daniel Arapakis
3rd – John Schmidli
Sports
In this class, pretty much anything goes. We had Tom Wetherill flying his super slick 32 size pylon racer, Mike Kellet racing a Cessna-looking trainer, Ian Haigh with his 16+ year old stick model, first timer Grant Collins flying a sports low wing and Andrew Arapakis, (also a first timer) flying a classic trainer.
All had a good day’s racing except Andrew who’s engine seized in the first race of the day. Was this one of Daniel’s old engines? Hope to see you flying at the next race Andrew.
1st – Tom Wetherill
2nd – Mick Kellet
3rd – Ian Haigh
The walk back, Mark with his EF1
EF-1
This class is slowly gathering momentum with three entries at this event.
Mark French flew his Shoestring, Walter Muller and myself, Pogo’s. All three models used the same E-Flite outrunner motors with different combinations of ESC’s and LiPo’s.
Finally some good weather in Melbourne and six rounds were flown. Mark was experiencing ESC problems (possibly due to overheating) which caused a reduction of power towards the end of each race and Walter flew very consistently to improve his times throughout the day.
Many thanks to the Werribee Club for hosting this Pylon event, providing catering and pylon marshals.
Allan Swift
1st – Allan Swift
2nd – Walter Muller
3rd – Mark French
The championship table has been updated and there is also a photo gallery from this event.
Championship
Daniel and his new F400
With only the AMPRA/Munro event left to run for the 2012 – 2013 Championship, this is the situation as it stands;
FA1 – Tom Wetherill has wrapped up 1st place. With Glenn Matthews more than 10 points behind, Tom can’t loose. Congratulations Tom!
Glenn Matthews and Barry and Beau Murphy will be fighting it out for 2nd and 3rd place.
F400 – It’s really tight at the top with Tom Wetherill, Jim Orenshaw and Andrew Davies battling out for the places. Gary Davidson and Glenn Matthews also have a chance of getting into the placings.
Q500 – No change in the top 3 positions but James Hurley has dropped away from the top by 4 points.
Next year’s championship starts with the July 13-14 event in Bendigo, so it’s now time to prepare and plan your assault on this title!
Next Event
AMPRA – This is a national pylon event and it’s being held here in Victoria, so there will be a lot of flyers from interstate. This is the big event for the year. Check out this AMPRA page for details.
John Schmidli – (Thanks to Allan Swift for the EF-1 report)