Back on November 18 – 19 after a weeks postponement, the VMPRA ran the Victorian State Championships down at Barry Murphy’s beautifully prepared, purpose built pylon racing facility.
Unfortunately I was not able to attend and an event report hasn’t been provided so I’ll get stuck into the results.
Brian Steele and Glenn Matthews have moved up a position each into 1st & 2nd positions respectively and Andrew Davies has dropped from 1st to 3rd position.
1st – Brian Steele
2nd – Glenn Matthews
3rd – Andrew Davies
That was the last full 3 class event for the year. We have a Q500 & Sports event scheduled for Crib Point on December 10.
The first event for 2018 is at Camperdown on February 3-4. This event is the VMPRA Trophy. Pencil that one into the diary.
Also worth considering is the Nats that are being held in West Wylong (NSW) on April 28-29, 2018. Entries close on January 31, 2018 so you can register to compete by visiting the below link.
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
After a long break in racing, the last event being back in May, the VMPRA held it’s first event at Rick Townsend’s purpose built pylon racing field in Newbridge. Rick has been setting up and developing this field over the last few years with the ambition of holding regular pylon racing events there.
We were blessed with some superb weather, particularly on the Sunday with temperatures of zero and below when we first arrived at the field, but with clear blue skies, it was t-shirt weather by lunch time.
Numbers were a little down on usual with the post world championship hang-over. Barry Murphy was suffering with the flu and had to return home on Saturday morning and Leigh Hocken also had to pull out due to illness. On the plus side it was great having father/son team Matt & Xavier Noonan there for the weekend flying Q500 and also Steve & Jo Taylor put in a big effort, coming down from Queensland. Steve was debuting his brand new F3D racer, the “Vector” which had only just been test flown the week before. They also left a bunch of models down here with some great bargains to be had. It was also great to have Rick flying with us again after a long break and he was certainly on it right from the start and ended up taking out 1st place in FA1.
Racing on both days comprised of F400, FA1 and Q500 as the last class for the day and all flew 8 rounds by the end of the weekend. We finished nice and early on the Sunday and finish, packed up and presented certificates and left around 3pm.
I think we would all say the flying at Rick’s field was very enjoyable. The field setup was great and the hospitality was 2nd to none with Rick and Ozzie’s Coffee van being on-site and along with Barry Townsend, were selling some very nice “really” coffees plus homemade food.
Event Report and Photos – John Schmidli Additional photos – Andrew Arapakis
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
The next event is AMPRA on June 10 & 11 to be held at Monarto Model Flying Field in South Australia. More information >>>
The next VMPRA event is scheduled for July 8 & 9. Details of what and where this event is to be staged are still to be confirmed.
The F3D World Championships are on in Sweden from July 25 to 29.
Note: The Bendigo event that was to be held on July 29 – 30 has been cancelled due to low numbers partly because of the World Champs. An alternate time and venue for the AGM is TBA.
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
The VMPRA was back racing in Warrnambool, a regional city on the West Coast of Victoria. The Field was in really good condition and the club was sporting some new structures in the form of a new club house and shed. The new club house was yet to be fitted out, so the guys from SA & NSW were allowed to set-up camp in there.
Travelling to Warrnambool on the Friday was a wet affair although conditions at the field where dry enough for setting up camp and to carry out some practice flights.
Saturday was off to an early start and once setup and was completed, we started with F400. Five rounds were completed and by lunch.
Next up was five rounds of FA1. The full Australian F3D 2017 World Championship team were present for this event so we got to see them in some of their final practice and preparations before heading off to Sweden in late July.
By the time the FA1 racing had finished it was getting late. We started Q500 with a healthy field of 9 pilot and managed to complete 2 rounds before low light started to become a problem. After stopping for the day, the drizzle set in.
Unfortunately, that was pretty much the weather for the whole night and most of the next day resulting in no racing on the Sunday and pulling up stumps after lunch.
FA1 & F400 classes had a result but Q500 with only 2 rounds completed, was a non-event. It was a pity as we had a good turn-out with Pilots from SA, NSW & VIC.
While waiting for the weather to improve on the Sunday morning, a reporter and photographer from the Warrnambool Standard interviewed the World Champ Team plots and took some photos for the news paper.
Event Report and Photos – John Schmidli Additional photos – Tom Wetherill
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
Back in March, the VMPRA had a race event back at Barry Murphy’s beautifully prepared pylon racing field down at Munro. It was a great event and the weather was kind to us.
It was great seeing father and son Q500 team, Matt and Xavier Noonan making their first race appearance at Munro as well as seeing Frank Cassella & Tom Prosser putting in really strong performances over the weekend.
Jim Orenshaw remained at the top position 20 points ahead of John Schmidli in 2nd who move up from 3rd with Gary Whitbourn moving down 1 place to 3rd position.
1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – John Schmidli
3rd – Gary Whitbourn
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
The first full 3 class race for the year which happens to be the VMPRA Trophy, was held at Camperdown over the weekend of February 4 & 5. Camperdown is always great place to go racing and the local club, the Corangamite Model Aircraft Club is situated in the middle of a horse racing track.
Weather for the Saturday was good although the sun was a bit warm and with concerns of possible rain on the Sunday, our CD for the weekend, (Mick Kellett) pushed to do 5 rounds of all classes on the Saturday. It was a long day with Q500 finishing after 5pm. After F3d finish and prior to Q500, we had to do a course change due to the wind direction shifting. At the end of the day, we had complete 40 races.
Sunday was cloudy and a little cooler. Another course change was required which took a little longer as the measuring line had fallen out of the trailer during the previous change and had to be found to set the pylons correctly.
We needed to complete 3 rounds of each class with rain and thunder forecast for that afternoon. F400 and F3D where competed by about 12:30. After a short lunch break, It all began to be a little challenging for Q500. With smallish numbers, and only 2 heats, we stay out at the flight line for refueling and service the planes to save time. A mid-air collation in the first heat, required a run back to the pits and assembling 2nd planes for Myself (John Schmidli) and John Yianni. The next race, James Hurley’s Viper had the tail fail around 2 & 3. He then had to fetch a 2nd plane. Just as the 2 round was starting a short but very heavy rain storm came through stopping proceeding again. Shortly after, racing resumed and we worked through to the end.
The course was packed up, trophies awarded and after saying a our goodbye, we got away before the rain arrived.
It was an enjoyable weekend and was particularly good to see our regular interstaters, Tom, Shaun & Jarrod Jacobsen and John Yianni from SA and Ranjit Phelan from NSW. It’s big commitment to travel these distances.
Andrew Davies has moved up to top spot. Barry Murphy has moved up to 2nd position from 4th and Glenn Matthews is in 3rd position having been in 5th position previously.
1st – Andrew Davies
2nd – Barry Murphy
3rd – Glenn Matthews
Jim Orenshaw & Gary Whitbourn have remained in first and second places respectively with myself (John Schmidli) moving from 5th position up to 3rd position.
1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – Gary Whitbourn
3rd – 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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
The VMPRA Trophy is on at Camperdown this weekend (Feb 4-5)
The Field is in reasonable condition and not as dry as this time last year.
Camperdown Racecourse access conditions:
Friday (03/02/2017)
Racecourse is available from 11:00 am onwards. PLEASE DO NOT ENTER EARLIER THAN 11:00 am.
Saturday (04/02/2017)
Gate open at 8:30 am and NO FLYING.
Entries close at 9:30 am and the course is to be set up.
Test Flying from 10:00 am to 10:30 am.
F400 to commence at 10:30 am.
FA1 practice allowed during lunch break.
FA1 to commence after lunch, followed by Q500.
Sunday (05/02/2017)
Field closed for test flying and racing to commence after 9:00 am.
The schedule for both days is F400, FA1 & Q500 and please let me know if you would be interested in being CD.
Please also note our VMPRA annual membership fees are due.
VMPRA’s last event for 2016 was in December back down at Munro.
Unfortunately there was no report written up for the event so, this post contains the basic results & championship standings.
The first race for 2017 is a Sports & Q500 event to be held on Jan 22 at the Westernport Model Aircraft Club. Looks like we’ll have a really good turn-out. There is always a good amount on Sport flyers there and the Q500 pilots look to be coming out in force.
Only 2 weeks later and we have our first full 3 class event at Camperdown on Feb 4th – 5th. So it all starting up for another year with the F3D world champs thrown in as well.
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
Each year in July, the VMPRA head off to Bendigo, a regional city situated in the gold fields of central Victoria. It is also the start of the new season championship and we hold our annual general meeting at this event each year. Traditionally, this generally being in the middle of Winter, we can have some pretty cold and wet weather. Luckily, this year we were blessed with quite good conditions and Sunday felt positively Spring-like.
As we gathered out at the Marong Model Airfield, conditions were a little foggy but this soon cleared and test flights were carried out. The challenge for the weekend came when setting up the pylon course and in particular the #1 pylon cage. Both the trailer and car towing it dropped into a particularly soft patch of earth as there had been quite an amount of recent rain. Next Tom Allen’s 4-wheel drive ended up stuck while trying to extract the car and trailer. It took another 4-wheel drive of James Hurley’s and some harder ground to start extracting all the vehicles and the cage. As a result, it was just before midday before racing got underway.
First up was Formula 400 with the aim to run only 3 rounds due to the very late start.
Next up was Quickie 500 to also fly 3 rounds. As this class has a relatively easy and quick turn-around time (with only 6 competitors), we refueled out on the line. 3 rounds were quickly completed and we had lunch.
After the late lunch it was time for FA1 (F3D) to race. There were unusually low numbers with only 4 competing so the races where over quickly but model prep/turn-around was slow. Even still, 4 rounds where completed before the end of racing for the day.
During the day, I took the opportunity to test out Facebook Live to film and televise a Q500 and FA1 race. It worked quite well with some well known names from around the world of pylon racing, coming online and viewing the video live. You should be able to view these from the VMPRA facebook page.
In the evening a group of us went off to the Marong pub for dinner. For the size of the town of Marong, the pub is excellent. After dinner, we headed back to the Marong caravan park for our AGM and general meeting. The main change to come from the meeting was James Hurley being elected as our new President of VMPRA taking up the vacancy left by Glenn Matthews after many years as president. I know all the members will join me in thanking Glenn for all his hard work in the past, of which we are only now really starting to get a real appreciation of what he has been doing and congratulating and supporting James in taking up this position.
With Saturday being a rather grey, cold and threatening day, It was a real pleasure to come out to the field on the Sunday morning to sunny still conditions which continued all day. It became warm enough for a few of us to end up stripped down to t-shirts.
Test flying was supervised by Toni Axon in line with our new safety requirement as discussed at the general meeting the night before (these will be published and communicated before the next event).
Racing for the day was the same order as Saturday with F400 and then Q500 doing 5 rounds each with Q500 gaining another competitor in local, Shaun Powers. It was good to see him there having raced with us 2 years prior. FA1 started fairly late and only ended up flying 7 rounds for the weekend whereas F400 and Q500 flew 8.
With this event being one of the 1st with Glenn & Nerida being way, it was good that we had people chipping in to help run the event. In all it went fairly well with only one glitch with the new laptop which had the old version of the timing program loaded, so we had to manually drop the extra round. This will all be sorted for future events.
Below is the 2015-2016 Season Championship for FA1F400 and Q500. Congratulations Daniel, Brian and Jim. It is quite an effort to string together good performances, event after event to be in the position to win the season championship.
Now we have already started the 2016-2017 season championship so let’s see who can get to the top this year. There is nothing like a challenge to made us lift our performance.
Season Championship after 1 event.
FA1
1st – Brian Steele 2nd – Andrew Davies
3rd – Leigh Hocken
We have reset the fastest times with the start of a new championship year. A huge congratulation goes out to Leigh Hocken for taking out the fastest times for last season in both FA1 and F400 and Daniel Arapakis for taking it out for Q500.
Next Race
The next event for VMPRA is a Q500 and Sports/Scanner race down at Crib Point on August 28. The race we had there earlier in the year was great with a lot of new comers to pylon competing. This one is really worth getting involved with. It is also part of the season championship for Q500.
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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
Despite gale force winds throughout the week in Victoria, our QLD friends from A1 Composites arrived safely at Munro. Yet again the field was immaculately prepared and ready for racing.
A dozen campers and pilots arrived on Friday for testing and preparations for the event which would be the last one for the F3D and F400 Annual Season Championship fly-off. With another field upgrade of a roaring pot belly heater, this proved to be a ripper particularly during the very popular evening festivities of the famous Saturday night dinner.
James Hurley and his F400 model recording a PB on the weekend
Saturday’s forecast was perfect with 24 degrees and light Westerly winds. Formular 400 kicked off with a field of 11 pilots with a variety of models flown. There was carnage between Brian Steele and Jimmy Orenshaw with a spectacular mid-air collision which obliterated both models. James Hurley focusing on one class this weekend which saw his personal best of 71.64 seconds being recorded in round 5 with a big smile returning to the pits pipping his team mate John Schmidli for 4th place. Great to see Andrew Davies back into the groove with sub 70 times on the Sunday finishing in a solid 3rd position for the weekend. Murphy owned Miss Dara’s designed by the world famous Dane Kane, took out 1st and 2nd places powered by a Nelson flown by Beau and Barry respectively. Fastest time was recorded by Beau with a 64.88 seconds. Well done to all pilots for the weekend.
Recent additions to the pylon fraternity, Father and son team, Gavin and Cameron Sexton
The entry pylon class – Quickie 500, took to the sky’s with 12 pilots from ages 12 to 80 years old. Veteran Tom Prosser again flew his immaculately scratch built model and was very impressive all weekend and an absolute pleasure to chat with regarding a life time of great stories and competitions. Saturday saw 3 rounds completed and young Cameron Sexton debut in this class with an Angelov model. His best time for this weekend was 124.96 seconds. Well done Cam!
As the event rolled on, the 1st & 2nd podium positions battle went on between Tom Allen and plane builder, Steve Taylor who was visiting Munro for the very first time and flying his flagship Q500 model, the Banshee with a uniquely yellow colour scheme. Some would say the stripes resembled a pineapple. Well done guys. Steve nudging 1st place, Tom Allen in 2nd and the very reliable John Schmidli in 3rd place. Weather did turn fierce with 30+ knot winds for the last 3 rounds and well done to all quickie pilots!
Beau Murphy and Daniel Arapakis and their Minute Master F3D pylon racers.
F3D event was piloted by 7 entrants. Saturday saw Beau Murphy in the 50’s and Dannmann closely behind him. Baz Murphy was tackled by dead-air while tail-gating Glenn Matthews which caused the destruction of his Minute Master after plowing into terra firma in round 1. Unfortunately only 3 rounds were completed on Saturday and flying on Sunday afternoon was cancelled due to strong winds. The best time was recorded by Beau with a 59.36 seconds. With AMPRA just around the corner, the Victorian pilots are in great shape for the first round of the 2017 world championship team trials.
This was the last event for the 2015-2016 Season Championship for FA1 & F400.
Q500 has one more event to run which is on July 3 at Werribee. Trophies for 1st place for each class will be presented at the AGM at the Bendigo event.
The following is how the season championship wrapped up for FA1 & F400 and how Q500 currently stands.
1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – John Schmidli
3rd – Andrew Arapakis
For Q500, again there was no change for the top 3 positions but John Schmidli is back in with a mathamatical chance to knock Jim off the top at the last event in Werribee.
There was no new fastest times recorded at this event. A huge congratulation goes out to Leigh Hocken for taking out the fastest times for the year in both FA1 & F400.
AMPRA is being held on the Queen’s Birthday weekend (June 11-13, 2016) up at Coolum “Sunshine Model Flyers” in QLD. This is the 1st of the 2017 WC Team Trials. Good luck to all the VMPRA members attending this event.
For the VMPRA, the next event is a Sports/Q500 1 day event being held at Werribee on July 3. A great opportunity to have some fun racing. Bring a Q500 or Sports model along.
Event Report – Anonymous
Additional information: John Schmidli
Photos – Lydia Arapakis & 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/our perspective and reflects how I/we 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.
