Category Archives: Reports

AMPRA, Munro June 8-10, 2013 – Event Report

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What a weekend this was! I would have to say, “too much pylon racing is barely enough” but it came pretty close.

Vern's rather cold F400 model (Vern's iPhone photo)

It’s seldom we get to go pylon racing for 3 days in a row, but even more rare that we would have good weather to do this. This weekend, we encountered absolutely spectacular weather for all 3 days. Icy mornings to start with, clear blue skies and extremely still conditions prevailed.

Strictly speaking this isn’t a VMPRA event. It’s the annual AMPRA (Australian Miniature Pylon Racing Association) Championship and this was hosted by Barry Murphy at his spectacular, purpose-built pylon racing field, affectionately known as Bazza’s Paddock.

We had a good turnout of Victorian competitors and 1 interstater (Ranjit Phelan) with a large contingency camping out at the field which is becoming a popular thing to do at a lot of the country locations. It was a shame that not more interstate competitors could make it to the event.

The catering at this event was fantastic with a huge variety of food throughout the day including a pre test flight breakfast.

FA1 (AUST F3D), F400 & Q500 classes raced this weekend.

Saturday we raced 4 rounds of F400, 4 Rounds of Q500 and 2 rounds of FA1.
Sunday, 3 rounds of Q500 and the remaining 7 rounds of FA1.
Monday, 2 rounds of Q500 and the remaining 5 rounds of F400.

FA1

Places:
1st Beau Murphy
2nd Gary Davidson
3rd Vern Gibson

(R to L) - Vern Gibson, Marcus Guss, Barry Murphy, Beau Murphy, Glenn Matthews & Gary Davidson,

The fastest time was Ranjit Phelan with 56.51s. Terry O’Connor’s plane went in, going around pylon 3 and Beau Murphy hit a pylon.

F400

Places:
1st Glenn Matthews
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd Andrew Davies

(L to R) - Brian Steele, Andrew Davies, Jim Orenshaw, Tom Wetherill, Glenn Matthews & Garry Davidson

James Hurley raced his new KD Racer and Daniel Arapakis flew F400 for the first time with his Terry O’Connor built aircraft. His best time and 2nd race ever in this class was 72.36s.
Fastest time was flown by Andrew Davies with 68.74s.

Q500

Places:
1st Daniel Arapakis
2nd Ian Haigh
3rd John Schmidli

(L to R) - Jim Orenshaw, John Schmidli, Daniel Arapakis, Beau Murphy, Ian Haigh & Kim O'Conor

There were 10 entries – the largest number I’ve seen at a 3-class event in the last 4 years. Really great to see more interest in this class and this has really raised the game with closer levels of competition.
The fastest time was Ian Haigh with  95.19s. This was achieved with his spare aircraft after the mysterious mid-air disintegration of his Viper.

 

 

More Information also see:

Race Results & Times
Photo Gallery

World Championships

By the time our next event comes around, competitors will be there or on their way to the F3D World Championships in the Netherlands. We’d like to wish the Australian and New Zealand teams all the best. Those representing Australia are:

Beau and Barry Murphy
Ranjit Phelan and Rick Townsand
Tyler and Warren Mees
and our junior, Matt Young and caller Bruce DeChastel

Also other VMPRA members:

Tom Wetherill and Jim Orenshaw who are representing New Zealand.

Next Event

The next event is at Bendigo on July 13-14 and we are racing the FA1, F400 and Q500.

We are currently trying to confirm whether camping is allowed at the field, but there is a caravan park 5 minutes away in Marong where we usually have the AGM. We are also expecting to run the VMPRA AGM and general meeting (venue and time TBC).

New Event – Swan Hill

We have an event coming up on September 14-15 in Swan Hill. VMPRA haven’t been to Swan Hill in a long time and it’s always great to get a new location to go racing, so put this one in your diaries and let’s support this one.

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. 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 try and make this a successful weekend. It would be great to see the guys from SA and the other Eastern states there.

John Schmidli – (report and some photos)
Additional photos provided by Lydia Arapakis (thanks).

Event Report – Werribee, May 19, 2013

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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)

Event Report – Warrnambool 13-14, 2013

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Much thought on the walk to & from the start line

The third VMPRA event for 2013 was held at the Warrnambool Model Aircraft Club’s field in Koroit, Victoria.  The field was in excellent condition and had been well groomed by the host club. Contestants began arriving on Friday afternoon and a large contingent set up camp at the field.  Those that arrived early enjoyed excellent weather conditions for testing and practice.

Three classes were scheduled to be flown – Q500 Sport, VIC F400 and FA1, the Australian version of FAI.  Per usual VMPRA practice, the racing was held over 10 ½ laps of the FAI course.  This reduces the requirements for the number of course workers as the cut judges at the No1 Pylon also serve as the timers.

Q500 Sport and VIC F400 were scheduled for Saturday morning.  Q500 attracted six entries and VIC F400 attracted 5 entries.  Beau Murphy also flew an F5D.  Three rounds of these classes were completed before the weather conditions deteriorated and racing was called off for the day.

At the end of three rounds, James Hurley was setting the pace in Q500 Sport.  David Axon had entered the fray and was running in second place – under the guidance of Bryan Steele, with maintenance support from Jim Orenshaw.  James’ arch rivals – John Schmidli and Daniel Arapakis suffered 200s.  Matt Carter obliterated his model when it came in contact with the ground.

In VIC F400, Glenn Matthews lead the way with his new Nelson LS powered Supercat.  He was followed by Andrew Davies and Gary Davidson.  These proved to be the final placings for this class as there was not sufficient time to complete any additional rounds on Sunday.

Sunday dawned with misty rain and low cloud cover, which delayed the start.  However, once the weather improved racing got underway with eight additional rounds of Q500 Sport and eight rounds of FA1 being completed.

Maybe one of the next generation of Q500 flyers - Helping dad!

The racing action in Q500 Sport became more intense on Sunday and times dropped significantly as conditions were much better than the day before.  At the end of 11 rounds of racing Daniel Arapakis was comfortably in first place.  His best time was 90.85 seconds, which is very impressive for this class.  John Schmidli was in second place and Davis Axon was in third place – having improved his race times by over 20 seconds!

The initial pace in FA1 was fairly conservative, as re-tuning seemed to be in order for some contestants due to the significant change in the weather conditions.  However, by Round Four the pace was picking up and the weather conditions had stabilised.  Eight rounds were run before time and daylight were starting to run out.  When the scores were tallied Tom Wetherill was in first place.  Andrew Davies finished second – a good return to form with a fresh engine.  Glenn Matthews finished in third place, posting some good times along the way.  The fastest time in FA1 was a 58.5 (for 10 ½ laps) that was posted by Beau Murphy.  The scores for the other competitors in FA1 were hampered by a few too many 200’s.

Team Murphy on the way to the start line

The Warrnambool event proved to be a great competition and VMPRA extends it thanks to the host club for allowing use of the field, providing workers to help man the course and for keeping everyone well fed during the weekend.

by Tom Wetherill

Results

FA1

This weekend was not so good for team Murphy with both Barry & Beau having issues. Very uncharacteristic for them.

1st – Tom Wetherill
2nd – Andrew Davies
3rd  – Glenn Matthews

F400

There was smaller numbers than usual particularly with James Hurley & myself not having a model to fly in this event. Tom Wetherill had an mishap when landing his Loki and broke the fuselage.

1st – Glenn Matthews
2nd – Andrew Davies
3rd – Gary Davidson

Q500

And Matt sat there working all afternoon until he had a plane to fly for the next day!

Another good turn-out for Q500 with David Axon joining in the fun. With the exception of a mishap with one of his models throwing a prop blade and being uncontrollable and going in, he had another model which flew well and he really improved his flying with the help of Brian Steel (shouting at him – David’s word) who was calling for him. David kept achieving new personal bests and ended up with 3rd place.

There was some good scrapps between myself and Daniel Arapakis with both of us getting new personal bests. 90.85 & 92.98 respectively. At this rate Daniel will be sub 90 seconds before long!

1st – Daniel Arapakis
2nd – John Schmidli
3rd – David Axon

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

Championship

FA1 – Tom Wetherill still leads but Glenn Matthews move up to second place and Beau Murphy move done to 3rd.

F400 – No change in the top 3 positions, but the points are close between Tom Wetherill, Jim Orenshaw & Andrew Davies so anything could happen at the next event.

Q500 – No change in the top 3 positions but James Hurley has drop away from the top by 4 points.

There is 1 more event for FA1 & F400 & 2 more for Q500.

The next year’s championship starts at the July 13-14 event at Bendigo so it’s now time to prepare and plan your assault on this title for your favoured class/es.

Next Event

The next event is a 1 day comp at Werribee flying Q500, EF-1 & Sports. The 1 day, introductory class races are the perfect event for coming along and trying pylon racing. There will be plenty of people on hand to assist you. You don’t need to have a special model. A 46 size trainer or low wing aircraft would be a fine model to start flying pylon.

EF-1 (Electric Formula 1) is a popular electric pylon racing class overseas. The planes are ARF models of full size formula 1 pylon racers. If you are into the electric models and want to race, this is your chance.

Bought a new Viper and ready to try racing it, come along to Werribee!

AMPRA

Also coming up is this year’s AMPRA event. 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 the calendar for details.

John Schmidli – (Thanks to Tom Wetherill for the event report)