Just a quick note. Make sure you fill out an entry form for the Nationals, December 28th-30th, 2013.
BTW: The 2014 Victorian State Championships has been added to the event calender. Make sure you add it to yours.
Hamilton 2013 – VMPRA State Championship – Event Report
Event
On the week end of October 12-13 (2013) the VMPRA held the Victorian State Pylon Championships which was held in Hamilton. Ironically, this is the event that we see a good number of our South Australian friend come across to enjoy a great weekend of pylon racing. On the Friday afternoon when I arrived, there were more of the SA guys at the field than Victorians. All up, there was 7 SA pilots plus a few partners along for the trip and calling.
There was quite a few of us camping over the weekend despite some dire weather predictions. It turned out to be a very pleasant spot to camp. The field at Hamilton was very green with plenty of grass and solid ground. No need for me to get towed out of the mud this time.
We had a great deal of help from the Hamilton members They manning #1 pylon and also number 2 & 3 pylons where manned all weekend. Along with the catering, the VMPRA were very grateful to the Hamilton members.
All weekend we had fairly windy condition with a threat of worsening conditions on the Sunday, so we managed to get 5 round of each class raced just in case Sunday racing was cut short. Yep… It was! F400 completed their 4 rounds on Sunday but Q500 was cut short and FA1 didn’t get to fly at all. It’s been a on-going theme since the new racing season started on July.
Results
FA1
This class being the Formula One of pylon racing and travelling at similar speeds, people who see this class for the first time can not believe what they are seeing.
Leigh Hocken was on form for this weekend after an early hickup in the form of a spectacular wing failure while practicing on Saturday morning. Gary Davidson also lost his model. He now knows where pylon #3 is as he hit it during a race.
We had a couple of pilots from SA flying in the class (Stuart Humpherson & Tom Jacobsen).
Places:
1st Leigh Hocken
2nd Barry Murphy
3rd Brian Steele
Fastest Time: 61.98 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors – 10
Course – 10.5 Lap
F400
A good size field for this class with 13 compeditor of which 6 were from SA.
Mike Kellet lost his KD Racer (jnr) after he lost it around #1.
Places:
1st Glenn Matthews
2nd Andrew Davies
3rd Terry O;Connor
Fastest Time: 67.89 – Andrew Davies
No. of competitors – 13
Course – 10.5 Lap
Q500
Not my best weekend for this class as I went home with 2 broken models but all caused during dodgy landings. I think the was one less Viper after John Yianni crashed his. The Tee-Que 500 is now becoming the more prevalent Q500 model now. Daniel was flying his new Tee-Que on the weekend.
Places:
1st Tom Weatherill
2nd John Schmidli
3rd Daniel Arakakis
Fastest Time: 99:33 – Daniel Arapakis
No. of competitors – 9
Course – 10.5 Lap
Check out the results in detail
2013-2014 Season Championship
FA1 – Barry Murphy has consolidated his lead further now being 9 points in the lead. Brian Steele has jumped up to 2nd position and Gary Davidson has slipped one position down to 3rd.
F400 – Glenn Matthews and Andrew Davies are in 1st & 2nd place respectively on equal points and Gary Davidson is only 2 points behind them in 3rd place. This is a really close battle.
Q500 – I’ve (John Schmidli) increased my lead with Daniel Arapakis 6 points behind in 2nd place having displacing Jim Orenshaw who is now in 3rd position.
Next Event
The next event is on November 23-24th and is back at Bazza’s Paddock near Munro. This purpose-build pylon racing field is fantastic and we always enjoys racing there. I hope to see lots of competitors at this event. If you need to find out the location, as it’s a private field, you can contact a member of the committee and we can give you directions. This is a great place to go pylon racing for the first time, so grab a Quickie model come along.
Another great chance to try pylon racing for yourself, is a club event at the LDMFA on November 10. Although not an official VMPRA event, this is open to anybody as long as you are a VMAA member. It will be a Q500, Sports & Electric pylon race (10.5 laps only). Visit the LDMFA site to find out more.
The championship table has been updated and there is also a photo gallery from this event.
John Schmidli (Report & Photos)
The written content in this post is accurate to the best of my 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 ReferenceEvent Result |
October Update
Coming up this weekend (at time of publishing) is the Victorian State Championships being held at Hamilton. There probably hasn’t been enough made of the fact that this is our state championship but everybody would like the bragging rights to be a place getter at this event. I believe there is a good contingency coming from South Australia also which will be great.
Hamilton 2012 - FA1 starting line
It’s a busy time with a pylon event having been held up in Queensland last weekend and one being held the week after our state champs in NSW. Talking about the Queensland event. I believe Beau and Barry Murphy made a flying visit to Maryborough to compete in the F5D World Championship team select event. Congratulation to Beau and Barry for winning that event and for securing a place on the Australian Team. Beau’s fastest time was a 55.76 (mighty fast).
I need to point out an error in the Swan Hill Event Report. I had Glenn Matthews down as having the fastest time in F400. This should have read Gary Davidson with a time of 65.41.
Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you even spot an error in an web posts.
Hope to see you all down at Hamilton.
John Schmidli
Swan Hill 2013 – Event Report
Event
A panoramic view of the Swan Hill club
It’s the first time that we have raced at Swan Hill in a very long time. We were back to our pre-World Championship numbers with a large number of us camping out at the airfield. There were 7 caravans or camper trailers this time. The club members made us feel very welcome and provided us with food for breakfasts, lunches and Saturday night’s dinner.
The weather was good with the rain stopping mid Friday afternoon and the rest of the time was mostly sunny with light to moderate winds.
Barry Murphy starting his Minute Master with call Andrew Arapakis
The racing for both days started with F400, followed by Q500 and FA1 to finish the day. Time allowed FA1 to complete 6 rounds on the Saturday so only needing 3 more rounds to be completed on Sunday. All classes completed 9 rounds over the weekend.
Thanks to the Swan Hill Club for manning the no.1 pylon timing cage, the VMPRA members who looked after the no. 2 & 3 pylons and as usual, Toni Axon for acting as starter and Nerida Matthews for the tireless job of time keeper/result recorder and keeping us moving along.
Results
FA1
Places:
1st Barry Murphy
2nd Gary Davidson
3rd Vernon Gibson
Fastest Time: 58:55 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors – 11
F400
Places:
1st Gary Davidson
2nd Jim Orenshaw
3rd Glenn Matthews
Fastest Time: 65.41 – Gary Davidson
No. of competitors – 8
During the F400 racing, there was the unfortunate demise of models belonging to Daniel Arapakis and James Hurley.
Q500
Places:
1st John Schmidli
2nd Jim Orenshaw
3rd Mike Kellet
Fastest Time: 94:15 – Daniel Arapakis
No. of competitors – 8
Check out the results in detail
Championship
Leigh Hocken IDs his VooDoo
With only a few events under our belts for the season, the Championship is still up for grabs.
FA1 – Barry Murphy has moved up to the top position from second place while Gary Davidson and Glenn Matthews have moved up to 2nd and 3rd places respectively.
F400 – Daniel Arapkis remained in 2nd place with Gary Davidson and Andrew Davies swapping positions with Gary now in 1st position and Andrew in 3rd.
Q500 – John Schmidli remains in 1st place, Jim Orenshaw moved up to 2nd having swapped with Daniel Arapakis, now in 3rd position.
New Calendar Entries
It’s worth having a look at the events calander again as there have been some additions.
For this year, there have been 2 non-Championship events added.
- A sports/Q500 event being put on in November by the LDMFA club. A great chance for those wanting to get into pylon racing, to give it a try.
- At the end of the year, there is the 67th MAAA Nationals being held in Albury/Wodonga. We have decided to get right behind the Nationals by participating and also encourage others from surrounding states to come along.
2014 Calender
We are starting to get events confirmed for next year, so keep checking back and add them to your diaries. Two events now listed are:
- Camperdown – the first event for the year.
- A F3D WC 2015 team select event in October being held at Cohuna.
Next Event
The first time Vern has beaten Brian!
The next event on the Calendar is the State Championship being held at Hamilton on October 12-13. I believe there will be a number of our South Australian friends coming to this event which will be great. I look forward to seeing everybody there.
The championship table has been updated and there is also a photo gallery from this event.
John Schmidli (Report & Photos)Additional photos thanks to Andrew Arapakis The written content in this post is acurate to the best of my 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 ReferenceEvent Result |
September Update
It’s not long now until VMPRA heads off to Swan Hill for a race weekend. This is a great opportunity to race at what is a new location on our race calendar.
We’ve been told that the airfield is looking nice and green after a good winter and warming spring. The runways are made up of mallee sand and gypsum (so nice and firm) and surrounded by green grass. 
Everything is flown here from EDF’s, nitros, fuel ….etc. Even turbines fly here once or twice a year.
There is free on-site camping, a hot shower and toilets. One of the members is supplying a sheep (butchered of course), so the food will be awesome.
For those not camping at the field, here is a suggested alternate accommodation http://www.swanhillholidaypark.com.au
So where is the field? Follow this link to see a Map of the field and greater Swan Hill.
We’re really looking forward to racing at Swan Hill and it will be great to see as many as possible there to make this week end a great success.
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).
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).
.
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
World Championship Info – Holland 2013
Team Australia
Final Results
Here are some links to help you keep up with the World Champs.
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 1
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 2
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 3
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 4
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 5
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 6
F3D Diary (Dutch Edition): Day 7
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/344545135567036/
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/AussieF3Dteam2013/
- https://www.facebook.com/WCF3D2013?fref=ts
- https://twitter.com/WCF3D2013
- https://twitter.com/vicpylon
The last link is the VMPRA Twitter feed and can be view via the vmpra.org.au web site in the RHS column.
Bendigo 2013 – Event Report
Event Report
This will be a short report. I’ve been told to pretend that the weekend went off without a hitch but this was not quite the case. With already lower numbers than usual due to the many members that were in or on the way to Holland for the World Champs, the forecast of rain all weekend wasn’t very encouraging.
The reality was that we only flew 5 rounds of F400 on Saturday morning and 1 round of FA1 on Saturday afternoon before rain stopped proceedings and that was it for the weekend. There was no Q500 flown at all.
This meant that F400 was the only class that could be counted as a result.
F400
1st place – Andrew Davies
2nd place – James Hurley
3rd place – Daniel Arapakis
Season Championship
As a result of the washout, only F400 was awarded championship points with the exception of all entries for FA1 and Q500 being awarded 1 point each for entering.
This was the first event for the 2013 – 2014 Championship Year.
World Championships
As I write this, all the Australian and New Zealand competitors are in transit to Holland.
There are several ways of keeping in touch with what is happening.
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/344545135567036/
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/AussieF3Dteam2013/
- https://www.facebook.com/WCF3D2013?fref=ts
- https://twitter.com/WCF3D2013
- https://twitter.com/vicpylon
The last link is the VMPRA Twitter feed and can be view via the vmpra.org.au web site in the RHS column.
Next Event
The next event is at Cohuna on August 17-18 and we are racing FA1, F400 and Q500.
We expect to run the VMPRA AGM and general meeting at the local motel on the Saturday night and this will take place following a spit roast dinner (TBC). VMPRA members will be notified when this has been confirmed. It is important to come along to the meeting and support pylon racing in Victoria
John Schmidli
July Update
Next event.
We are racing at the Bendigo club at Marong on July 13-14.
Andrew Davies has been in contact with the club and has confirmed that it is fine for those interested in camping at the field to do so. Campers need to contact Andy Thomas (Bendigo President – see http://www.brcac.asn.au) so he can advise where to setup and of any other requirements. It’s great that so many clubs allow us to do this. There is also camping nearby at the Marong caravan park.
Brian Steele and Andrew Davies with his KD Racer F400 model
AGM
It was originally envisaged that we would hold our AGM at this event which has been the tradition but as there will be a significant group away at the F3D World Championships, we will hold it at a later date to be advised.
F3D World Championship
On the subject of the F3D World Championships which is to be held in the Netherlands between July 23 and 28, 2013. We wish our members who are travelling to Europe and participating in this great event, all the very best for the trip and the competition.
Beau and Barry Murphy and Ranjit Phelan and Rick Townsand are VMPRA members representing Australia. Matt Young is also representing us as a junior with the help of Bruce DeChastel as caller and supplier of models and engines.
Team New Zealand is being represented by VMPRA members, Tom Wetherill and Jim Orenshaw. Toni and David Axon are also travelling to the Netherlands and I would imagine, will be involved in some way. I hope I haven’t missed anybody out.
Also from Queensland, Chris and Kevin Callow and Tyler and Warren Mees are represnting Australia.
We can’t wait to hear news of how you all go.
I’ll try to post any information that becomes available during the Champs.
John Schmidli