Category Archives: Reports

Event Report – Cohuna 2012

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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

 

Event Report – Munro Aug 2012

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Jim .... recovering components after a mid-air with Brian Steele

What a great field is Bazza’s padock. AMPRA is going to be flown here next year! The weather was very good with light winds and light cloud cover if not sunny.

We ran 9 rounds of (4 on Saturday & 5 on Sunday) of F400, Q500 & then FA1.

It was good to see some Paul Schmidt after a long break from pylon and Marcus Guss was back for the 2nd time at Munro this year.

Kim, Terry, their huskies and a winning GR7

There were only a couple of incidents over the weekend, most notably was a mid-air between Jim Orenshaw & Brian Steele in FA1. Both continued to fly with backup models.

All in all, another great weekend’s pylon racing.

See Results >>>

See Photos >>>

We have also started the 2012-2013 season championship table so the challenge is on to score high points and compete in as many events as you can.

See Championship Table >>>

Bendigo 2012 – Event Report

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Bendigo once again played host to the VMPRA for a weekend of FA1 (F3D), F400 & Q500.

On the start line and on time

Despite a bleak forecast, the weather was not too bad. Saturday, there were a few showers that stopped racing, but Sunday was much better and wind conditions were good.

All 3 classes completed 9 rounds, with 3 each on the Saturday and 6 each on Sunday. This event was competely void of any flying incidents which is quite unusual but a testiment to the skill and clean racing that went on.

Tom Wetherill's F3Ds

Saturday saw a lot of FA1s struggling with a quite a few flame-outs which wasn’t evident on Sunday and pylon 3 was a bit of a challenge for some reason (or was that just me?!).

Saturday night was the VMPRA Annual General Meeting where office bearers were elected. Glenn Matthews is now the president, I’m the secretary & Andrew Davies is the contest organizer. Gary Davidson was good enough to stay on as treasurer for another 12 months. Thanks goes out to the previous office holders, Davis Axon, Tom Wetherill and Mike Kellet for all their time and effort. Without these people, we wouldn’t be pylon racing in Victoria.

Special thanks should also go to Rick Townsend & Matt Young for their big effort in

Matt Young (left) - A very successful weekend flying F3D

preparing the airfield for this event. It was a great weekend of racing and congratulations goes to Matt Young for his 3rd place in FA1 in only his 2nd go at flying this class. Great to see new talent joining the ranks. This should inspire other young pilots to give pylon racing a go.

Check out the results >>>

Check out photo gallery >>>

The next event is Munro on August 11-12. Check out the calender >>>

John Schmidli