Tag Archives: F3d

Bendigo July 2014 – Event Report

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VMPRA returned to the Bendigo Radio Control Aircraft Club (BRCAC) for the annual pylon event that was held at the club’s field in Marong, Victoria on the weekend of 5 – 6 July 2014.  This is a very popular event on the VMPRA calendar for many reasons. The club and field are great, the accommodation is very close to the field and the local hotel serves up excellent food, which is very important for getting some extra insulation on the cold winter nights.

While weather can be a factor at this time or year, competitors enjoyed very good overall conditions during practice on Friday and over racing during the weekend. The racing program included Q500 Sport, VIC F400 and FA1, with the objective of flying as many rounds in each class as possible. Per usual VMPRA practice, racing was held over 10 ½ laps to reduce the requirements for the number of course workers.

Friday practice was a somewhat leisurely affair as the weather was good, except for a brief rain shower, and there was plenty of opportunity to get in flights. The field was in excellent condition – and special thanks go out to Rick Townsend spending nine hours with his lawn mower.
Regular competitors came from Victoria and New South Wales as well as a large contingent of racers arrived from South Australia.  The host Bendigo club was also well represented with a good number of entries.

Racing got underway on Saturday morning with four founds of VIC F400. There was an impressive 17 entries in this class and it immediately became clear that if Shaun Jacobsen could tame his new DKT powered AR-6, that he would be putting in some good times. Brian Steele had also pried open his wallet and purchased a new Nelson.

By the end of Round 4 he had posted an impressive time of 64.76 seconds, just short of a 64.6 that was posted by Glenn Matthews with his Nelson powered Supercat. Daniel Arapakis and Ranjit Phelan were also fast with times 65 second times.

Next up was Q500 Sport, and this class attracted 13 entries. John Schmidli and Barry Townsend were debuting impressive new Banshee models. Daniel Arapakis “unretired” himself from Q500, as he was saving his FA1 models for the next Team Trial. Three rounds were flown and James Hurley posted the fastest time with a 101.03.  Behind him there were many close races.  John and Barry were still coming to grips with their new models.

After a brief break, four rounds of FA1 were flown.  This class attracted nine entries, including Rick Townsend’s new Veyron and Glenn Matthews new VooDoo.  After four rounds, Rick was about 2 seconds ahead of Tom Wetherill, with Bryan Steele in third.  Ranjit Phelan had posted the fastest time with a 60.69.

On Saturday evening, most of the competitors met at the Marong Family Hotel for dinner. This was followed by the VMPRA Annual General Meeting, which was held at the caravan park.

Plans for an early start on Sunday morning were thwarted by fog, which did not clear until mid-morning.  As a result, the target was re-set at completing seven rounds for each class.

First up was Q500 Sport and times were improving significantly. In the end, James Hurley was in first place with a score of 612.6, Daniel Arapakis was second with a score of 703.4 and John Schmidli was third with a score of 726.6.  Tom Wetherill had a score of 606.7, but opted to let the class regulars take the placings.  Daniel Arapakis had the fastest time with a 93.95.

The next task was to complete the remaining three rounds of VIC F400 and the pace also improved from the Saturday.  In the end, Ranjit Phelan was in first place with a score of 392.3 and the fast time of 62.92…not far behind the pace of the faster FA1’s.  Shaun Jacobsen was second with a score of 401.8 and Brian Steele was third with a score of 416.1.

The final class to be flown was FA1 and three additional rounds were completed.  Conditions had changed from the prior day and a few 200’s were showing upon the scoreboard.  Late in the afternoon the position of the sun became problematic, so starter Mick Kellett would wait for cloud cover to appear before starting the final few heats.

After the seven rounds were completed, Brian Steele was in first place with a score of 391.0, Tom Wetherill was second with a score of 524.6 and Glenn Matthews was third with a score of 526.5.  Ranjit Phelan posted the fastest time with a 60.11. Rick Townsend detonated an engine in spectacular fashion.

At the end of the day the awards were handed out to the place getters.  VMPRA and the competitors expressed their thanks to the Bendigo club for hosting VMPRA and supplying hot food and drinks, to Rick Townsend for preparing the field, to the people who had worked the course in the cold conditions and to the group from South Australia that had travelled to compete.  Tom Jacobson is the ring leader for the SA group and their presence and camaraderie really enhanced the event.

Check out the event photo gallery>>>

Results

FA1

Places:
1st Brian Steele
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd Glenn Matthews

Fastest Time: 60.11 – Ranjit Phelan
No. of competitors: 9
Course – 10.5 Lap

F400

Places:
1st Ranjit Phelan
2nd Shaun Jacobsen
3rd Brian Steele

Fastest Time: 62.92 – Ranjit Phelan
No. of competitors: 14
Course – 10.5 Lap

Q500

Places:
1st James Hurley
2nd Daniel Arapakis
3rd John Schmidli

Fastest Time: 93.95 – Daniel Arapakis
No. of competitors: 13
Course – 10.5 Lap

Check out the full results>>>

2014-2015 Season Championship

This was the first event for the new season championship for 2014-2015 and this is how the positions sit.

FA1

1 – Brian Steele
2 – Tom Wetherill
3 – Glenn Matthews

F400

1 – Ranjit Phelan
2 – Shaun Jacobsen
3 – Brian Steele

Q500

1 – Tom Wetherill
2 – James Hurley
3 – Daniel Arapakis

It’s early days for the championship and everybody has a chance to be in the mix for the championship. All you have to do is go racing.

Full Championship Results>>>

Next Events

The next event is the Victorian State Championships being held on August 2-3, at the fantastic pylon racing field of Barry Murphy’s. Not only is this the State Champs, but it is also another of the F3D 2015 World Championship team trials, so there will be some hotly contested racing in F3D. We will also be flying the 10 lap course and obviously, F3D will take priority due to the importance of this result to selecting the next Australian team. As this is a private field, If you would like to attend this event and don’t know the location, please contact a member of committee for directions. See you all there.

Check Event Calender >>>

Event Report: Tom Wetherill
Additional Post items & 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

 

AMPRA 2014 – Event Report

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The 2014 AMPRA Championship event was held at the Maryborough club’s field, Queensland on the long weekend of 7 to9 June.  Five classed were flown including FA1 (FAI – F3D), F400/F3T, F3R and Q500 Sport.  FA1 was the first of a series of team trials to represent Australia at the 2015 F3D World Championships that will be held in Olomouc, in the Czech Republic.  In addition to the competition for places on the Senior Team, Daniel Arapakis and Joseph Black, were competing for the opportunity to represent Australia as a Junior.

A large contingent from Victoria travelled to the event –either by driving the 4,500 km round trip or flying to Brisbane and renting a car.  Most arrived on the Thursday evening and were ready to start practice on Friday morning.  The field was in immaculate condition and the club members were on hand to serve up food and drinks throughout the weekend. The weather was also perfect and the forecast was looking good – so everyone was looking forward to the weekend ahead.

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

The first event on the program for Saturday was to complete five rounds of FA1.  There were 15 entries – 8 from Victoria.  Leigh Hocken, Tyler Mees and Beau Murphy all set an impressive pace, each recording 57 second times.  There was plenty of close and exciting racing, however, at the end of Round 5, Leigh was just ahead and had posted a best time of 56.86seconds.  For the Juniors, Daniel had posted four scores and Joseph had two scores, with three 200’s.

After a leisurely break for lunch, five rounds of Q500 were flown.  This class only attracted four entries – half of which were from the Mees family.  Two places were awarded to the entry level pilots– with Jack Hickey taking first and Allan Taylor taking second.  Tyler Mees posted the fastest time of 106.58 seconds.

The day’s racing had progressed very well and was completed by mid-afternoon.  This allowed plenty of time for further tuning of the FA1’s and other models to get ready for the next day of racing.

Andrew & Daniel Arapakis

On Sunday morning, the field was closed at 0830 and the timing equipment was set up. Four more rounds of FAI were scheduled for the morning, and the matrix was changed from the prior day.  Leigh, Tyler and Beau continued their pace and finished in the first three positions with scores of 407.1, 409.7 and 414.8, respectively.

Ranjit Phelan finished the event strongly and ended up with a score of 430.0.  Tom Wetherill was fifth with a score of 443.5.  Daniel Arapakis was sixth and the first Junior home with a score of 450.6 – edging out Brian Steele.  A good result for the Victorian-based racers, who took out five of the top seven placings.

In the afternoon, five alternating rounds of F400 and F3T were flown.  F400 (no nitro) attracted seven entries from Victoria and New South Wales and F3T (15% nitro) attracted 11 entries from Queensland.  There was close racing in both classes.  In F400 there was a tie for first place as well as a tie for third place – first time that anyone could remember that happening!  In order to break the ties – fly-off’s were held. The first fly-off was between Ranjit Phelan and Daniel Arapakis for first place and both pilots had one cut.  However, Ranjit had the lower score and took out first place.

Tom Wetherill and Tony Howse had a fly-off for third place.  However, Tony had a cut and Tom Wetherill took third place.  The fastest time in F400 was a 65.42 recorded by Ranjit Phelan.

In F3T, Greg Gillies was setting the pace with impressive speed from his Nelson powered AR-6.  Joseph Black was not far behind after five rounds, with a best of 62.86.  An additional two rounds of F3T was flown on Monday morning for the QLD racers, as the Victorians had to start the trip back home.

On Monday, the weather turned and became quite windy.  The remaining two rounds of F3T were flown. Greg Gillies placed first with a score of 390.1, Joseph Black was second with a score of 400.3 and Rod Williams was third with a score of 414.0.

The last event on the program was F3R, which attracted nine entries from Queensland.  Five rounds were flown and Bruce DeChastle had a win by a very narrow margin – 298.9 to 299.0 that was posted by Greg Gillies.  Rod Williams was third with a score of 318.7.

AMPRA 2014 was very well organised and a great success.  The competitors also shared duties working the course and refly’s were a rarity.  Most importantly, after four days of flying and racing – no models had been lost.  The Victorians enjoyed the event, the weather and the local hospitality from the club and the event organisers.

Report: Tom Wetherill (Thanks fro a great report Tom).

Hot Stuff Model Fuels

Warrnambool April 2014 – Event Report

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With the Friday being ANZAC day, it was a good chance to leave early for the trip to Warrnambool and do some test flights and setting up. The weather on the Friday was quite spectacular. Quite a few of us camped out at the field.

Saturday started off with rain but this dispersed by the time test flights started. After setting up the course, F400 started. With the first round completed, it was decided that the course needed to be re positioned due to a visibility issue with the no. 1 pylon judges. There was long grass obscuring the planes taking off, causing some confusion as to which plane to follow. If you don’t know all the plane very well, it is very easy to end up following the wrong plane if you can’t see the launch.

The course was reset and racing started again having dropped the already raced rounds. It was around 11am by the time we got going again. As a result, the number of rounds ended up being 7 rather than the usual 9 rounds for the weekend.

This was also exacerbated by having to reset the course at the last minute on the Sunday due to the predicted wind direction.

Pylons 2 and 3 judges were in place all week end which was excellent. Again this makes for legitimate results.

Thanks goes out to the members of the Warrnambool Club, Toni Axon, Nerida Matthews and all who helped out with pylon judging.

Check out the event photo gallery>>>

Results

FA1

Place getters in FA1, Tom Wetherill, Leigh Hocken & Frank Cassella (L-R)

It was good to see the team of Leigh Hocken and Frank Cassella back racing at this event and doing well. F3D is getting serious now with the next event at AMPRA being the start of the Australian team trials for the next world champs in 2015.

Places:
1st Leigh Hocken
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd Frank Cassella

Fastest Time: 57.37 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors: 11
Course – 10.5 Lap

F400

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

Fastest Time: 68.71 – Glenn Matthews
No. of competitors: 10
Course – 10.5 Lap

Q500

Places:
1st Daniel Arapakis
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd John Schmidli

Fastest Time: 96.35 – Daniel Arapakis
No. of competitors: 8
Course – 10.5 Lap

Check out the full results>>>

2013-2014 Season Championship

This event marked the end of the 2013-2014 VMPRA Season Championship after a total of 8 events for FA1 & F400 and 9 for Q500. I know from my point of view, it has added an additional element to the competition through-out the year.

FA1

2013-2014 Season Champion for FA1 – Barry Murphy

2nd place – Brian Steele
3rd place – Glenn Matthews

Congratulation to Barry Murphy who won by a huge margin even though having raced in 1 less event than the maximum. Brian Steele also raced in 1 less event and came in 2nd.

F400

2013-2014 Season Champion for F400 – Glenn Matthews

2nd place – Andrew Davies
3rd place – Daniel Arapakis

Congratulations to Glenn Matthews on winning this class. It was very close at the top with Glenn and Andrew on equal points with only 1 event left to run.

Q500

2013-2014 Season Champion for Q500 – John Schmidli

2nd place – Daniel Arapakis
3rd place – Jim Orenshaw

It was a tight battle all season between Daniel and myself and I had not expected to be able to defend my title from the previous year. Daniel announced at Warrnambool that he was going to retire from Q500 and put all his efforts into FA1 & F400. Well done Daniel. He was responsible for many of us cutting our personal bests by a considerable amount. There is nothing like strong competition to sharpening your performance.

Full Championship Results>>>

New Event

There has been the addition of a Q500, EF-1 & Sport event scheduled for Werribee on August 24, so all those interested, pencil this one in to the calendar. We have been getting quite good size turnouts at these 1 day events, especially being to close to Melbourne.

Next Events

The next event for those wanting to travel to sunny Queensland and to the 1st of the 3, F3D world champ team trials is AMPRA which is being held at Maryborough on the Queen’s birthday week end . Check out the AMPRA schedule and the QMARA website.

The next VMPRA event is at Marong near Bendigo on July 5-6. We intend to run the VMPRA AGM on the Saturday night. Time and location TBC.

Report & Photos: John Schmidli 

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 Reference

Event Result
Photo Gallery
Season Championship
Event Calender