Back on August 24, VMPRA held its regular Q500 event at the Werribee Club. The day started off with brilliant sunshine while the early risers waited for the club gates to open. Soon a club member opened up and over the next hour, competitors tricked in and started setting up planes ready for the end of the noise curfew at 9am to end.

Test flights were undertaken and then the course was setup. This included mowing a patch for the take-off area, especially because the sports planes do sometimes actually need a runway.

This event was for the Q500 class plus a sports and the EF-1 class. Some of the more recent regulars weren’t in attendance but the numbers were boosted by a couple of first timers and a second timer and a recent returnee to pylon racing. It was great to see Andrew Arapakis finally race and complete an event flying a his trainer. Looking at his times, he made really good improvements in times as the day went on . The Arapakis’s brought along a fellow club member in Nathan Ranson who ended up flying Andrews trainer also, breaking the age old VMPRA curse where a shared plane always is destroyed in the first round that it is flown. Nathan took to the course quite quickly and was flying the trainer tightly around the pylons. Les Spaltman flew his second event in both Q500 & Sportsman as did George Angelov who is a recent returnee to pylon after a spell away from it.

Q500 was hotly contested as usual with a return of the recently retire Daniel Arapakis. This class 6is just a lot of fun to fly and now that we have good numbers at each event, it is looking very health. It is worth mentioning that it was at Werribee 2 years earlier that our next junior representative at the 2015 F3D world championships, Daniel Arapakis, raced a trainer for the first time. He quickly started flying Q500 and along with his father’s dedication, the awesome mentoring of the Murphy’s and the progression into faster classes he is now a very competitive flyer amongst the seniors. This is a great example of what someone can do with the right guidance and support.

Thanks to the Werribee club for hosting this event, providing food and refreshments and  for supplying helpers for the number 1 pylon cage.

Check out the event photo gallery>>>

Results

Q500

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

Fastest Time: 90.58 – John Schmidli
No. of competitors: 9
Course – 10.5 Lap

Sports

Places:
1st Tom Wetherill
2nd Alan Swift
3rd Les Spaltman

Fastest Time: 94.91 – Tom Wetherill
No. of competitors: 8
Course – 10.5 Lap

Check out the full results>>>

Season Championship

Q500

James Hurley is still in 1st place, John Schmidli has gained a point on James and Daniel has jumped into 3rd places.

1 – James Hurley 
2 – John Schmidli
3 – Daniel Arapakis

.Full Championship Results>>>

Next Events

There’s a bit of a break over September and then we have Cohuna on October 4-5. This is the last of the 2015 World Championship team trials for F3D class so this is sure to be an exciting event.

The Cohuna club has let us know that there will be breakfast and lunch available on the Saturday and Sunday. There will also be camping available out at the field.

Check Event Calender >>>

Event Report & 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