This Sunday (May 19) we are having a pylon race at Werribee. It’s a 1 day event flying Q500, Sports and EF-1.
The Q500 race is the penultimate round of the 2012-2013 VMPRA championship which ends at the following event to be held at Munro.
Sports pylon covers a large range of models from trainers to low wing sports planes, typically of a 46 sports engine size. It’s the best way to start pylon racing. Only 12 months ago, Daniel Arapakis was flying a trainer around the pylon course and now he’s up there with the fastest competitors in the Q500 class.
EF-1 models
EF-1 (electric formula 1) is a fairly new class for electric flight. There are a range of ARF models that can be purchased for this class and is an inexpensive way to go racing.
Wanted – Magazine Columnist
For many years, John Hughan wrote a pylon racing column in Airborne magazine (http://www.airbornemagazine.com.au/). Ever since John stopped producing this column, Airborne Magazine has been looking for a contributor to write pylon racing related articles on a regular basis. Having pylon racing represented in Airborne Magazine is a great chance to publicize our most exciting facet of aeromodelling. With AMPRA & the World Champs coming up soon, it’s a great time to start.
If anybody feels they would like to give this a go, please let me know.
On yet another very warm day, we headed off to the Bacchus Marsh model aircraft club to race the introductory classes of Q500, EF-1 & Sports. The intention of this event is to give people a chance to try pylon racing for a first time or to encourage those new to pylon racing to improve their skills.
James Hurley and I where first to arrive at the club and were given a friendly welcome by a group of local club members already there with BBQs setup and chewing the fat.
Due to an over-site when the event calendar was put together, this event was scheduled for the Sunday of the Labour Day long weekend (in Victoria). As a result there were pretty low numbers and no new comers to give pylon a go. There was still a group of 8 flyers there plus David & Toni Axon along with some Bacchus Marsh members, there to help run the event. We decided to go ahead and get 5 rounds complete, have lunch, presentations and pack up early to escape the hottest part of the day. Funnily enough, I was last to leave and it had started raining as I drove out of the club. Who expected that!
Out of the 8 flyers, 5 of us flew Q500 models and this would contributed to the season championship. The other 3 were a variety of models. Alan Swift with a (legal) EF-1 model, Terry O’Connor had an electric converted Quarter Midget model (very similar dimensions to the EF-1) and Tom Wetherill flew a composite/pylon style IC model.
I think we all had a good time. I certainly know I did and any chance to fly around the course is another chance to improve your flying.
Results: Q500
1st Place – John Schmidli
2nd Place – James Hurley only 0.6 sec behind the lead.
3rd Place – Gary Davidson. Only 4.0 sec of the pace.
Check out the full results >>>
Note that the course was not measured out so times are not indicative of our usual results.
Next Event:
Bazza’s paddock at Munro on March 23-24.
All 3 classes (FA1, F400 & Q500)
I didn’t manage to get many photo on the day due to there being only 3 heats per round. Anybody interested in contributing to this website, It would be great if you would like to:
1. Take photos of the event,
2. Write an event report.
Any help would be appreciated. Let me know if you would like to help out in any way.
