F3j / Thermal duration
Reports & results F3J - Thermal duration

F3j / Thermal duration

Model Flight Midway Cup Open and f5j Horsham 2019

We had 17 starters for the Model Flight Midway cup held in Horsham, which was also the VMAA state championships in Open Thermal in Victoria.

This year we decided to run an f5j and an open event together, unfortunately we didn’t have the numbers, ie with enough pilots in a heat, to run them at the same time as we're planning to at Jerilderie. Since you could only fly one class or the other, we ended up with 10 pilots flying open thermal with winches, and 7 flying f5j, so we decided to interleave the heats of open and f5j, with every third heat in a round being all up f5j.

We had an international flavour this year with Frank Campbell, an Aussie expat, living in the U.S., and while visiting family here, coming along to compete in f5j.

We had Don Farrar join us in f5j, a keen f5j flyer from NSW, and who has competed in Europe, on an "f5j" event tour of southern Australian States. 

It was also good to see Rolf Hedt, finally flying in the f5j event as a host club pilot, rather than just helping organise things.

Weather on the Saturday started very marginal, with a light shower while we were setting up the field first thing, but by the time we got going the weather had improved, and continued to improve over the 2 days. Wind was light to medium strength on the Saturday with the clouds clearing somewhat by the end of the day which made for long lift cylcles, and not very strong lift. 

Sunday on the other hand, was  great, blue skies, even lighter wind conditions, made for some lower f5j launches but I think people were on the conservative side. So most people stuffed up flights on the Saturday, and with most getting their times on the Sunday.

I want to thank Dan Haskell for CDing and managing to also compete in the open class, and Gerry Carter for managing the scoring side, although he made things easier by going to online scoring for score entry.

Also I'd like to thank the members of the Wimmera Model Aircraft Association for the use of their field, and for the great bbq lunches they provided on both days, and particulary Rolf Hedt for his efforts in organising things locally.

 

As well thanks to the main event sponsor:

Model Flight, represented by Mike O'Reilly who once again generously provided prizes.

 

In conclusion, the placings, and congrats, goes to:

 

Open Thermal and VMAA state champions

1st Darrel Blow

2nd Greg Potter

3rd Simon Morris

 

and in F5J

1st Andrew Meyer

2nd Jim Houdalakis

3rd Marcus Stent

 

Finally the perpetual Model Flight Midway Cup for 2019 

determined by the aggregate scores of the top flyers from each state from both classes,

and which once again goes to

South Australia!

and it was so close!

 

regards

Jim

 

Open Thermal Results Midway Cup via Glider Score

F5J Results Midway Cup via Glider Score

 

f5j_places

F5j Places 2nd Jim 1st Andrew 3rd Marcus

 

darrel_1st_in_open

Open Thermal 1st Darrel

 

greg_2nd

Open Thermal 2nd Greg

 

simon3rd

Open Thermal 3rd Simon

 

south_aus_win_midway_cup

Top South Australians, with Midway Cup for another year.

 

pilots_open_and_f5j

Open and F5j Pilots

 

pilots_f5j

F5j Pilots

 

cant_get_closer

Pretty close Greg!

Results Milang International F3j March 2019

Following 2 days of nice conditions for f5j, it was time for f3j.
There was good turnout, with 30 entries, and teams of 4
And as forecast it started overcast and windier than f5j, and the usual first heat hanging in the buoyant air up front, easily making time. The second heat and 3rd heats with just enough buoyant air to make time. By the fourth heat the air was buoyant up high, but you had to pick the correct half of the sky to get into the very light lift early on. By the fifth heat there were strong enough bubbles forming that you could get away in them.
It was forecast to get breezy as the day progressed, which it did for a few rounds, but with distant weather fronts going through, it was doing the opposite to forecast as the day went on,
With conditions lightening off by the end.
Day 2 and blue skies greeted us, with the initial rounds a bit breezy, but that soon developed into gusty thermals with lulls in the intervals in between, all in all the second day was much easier than the first. We flew til early afternoon, where we ended the preliminary rounds, had lunch and the top 8 positioned flyers competed in 3 flyoff rounds.
The top 8 pilots in the flyoffs
1 Joe Wurts
2 Kevin Botherway
3 Jamie Nancarrow
4 Peter Williams
5 Marcus Stent
6 Nick Chabrel
7 Andrew Meyer
8 Jim Houdalakis
As seems to be the usual thing for flyoffs at Milang, the afternoon sea breeze picked up and most ballasted up, and with 15 minute flights, it was going to be an eye sight test.
Most stuffed up the first round, and the remaining 2 rounds weren’t too hard.
So congrats to:
1st Andrew Meyer
2nd Marcus Stent
3rd Kevin Botherway
f3j_pace_getters

Results Combined Winch and Electric Launch Open Thermal Varms Feb 24


A lovely, light wind, sunny day greeted us at VARMS for the Feb RCGA Combined Open Thermal with Electric competition. A huge thanks to VARMS for hosting us for the day and there were 3 local VARMS members who joined in the fun and quite a few who enjoyed watching from the sidelines.
We had 2 pilots fly winch and 8 fly electric and the issue for the winch launch pilots was the variable wind direction and the sun in the direction of the winchlines.
Jim won the day with superior thermalling using his relatively heavy winch launch Perfection. The bonus was if he missed the lift he could move fast to find the next patch of lift. Well flown Jimmy!
Alan, Bob and David finished 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively and all had a full set of times and only missed higher places due to their landings.
Marcus finished 4th and was on fire early scoring 5 x 1000 scores and was proving that you can land an electric like a winch launch glider with and average landing of 99 points and he even threw in a perfect flight of 10:00 and 100. His undoing was being too aggressive in the last round when the lift had died and had to come in for a relaunch for an 8:30 flight.
Colin flew his beautiful looking own design model to great effect and had 5 great flights out of 6.
Zdnek, Bruce and Gary all had a some really nice flights and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Bruce had an out landing in the last round and we thought the worst, but luckily found the model sitting perfectly on a grassy knoll.
Gerry unfortunately had a day to forget with some damaged models, but he will be back.
Thanks again to VARMS for the fantastic hospitaliy, it was very much appreciated by all.
Cheers,
Marcus

Results Armidale Sailplane expo Combined Electric and Winch Open Thermal 2019

The hot, sunny and light conditions continued after the f5j, for this event.
Most of the f5j fliers stayed on, but for some, the heat after 2 days was enough and went home early.
Out of the 25 that flew, there were only about 8 flyers that decided to winch,
a far cry from the previous years 28 when it was winch only.
First day and there was a prevailing light breeze from the west, with basically big lift and occasionally big sink.
Setup into wind, I decided to winch for the open, and flew my 1850g  Perfection so I could get good launch height.
The motor gliders had motor cut outs at 200m, but could fly quite a bit lighter than me. I was out launching most of the electrics,
but some were making the most of the fact you could zoom past 200m (I was told of one motor glider log of 236m)
so I was probably matching them with the winch. I don’t think a lot of the other winch launchers
were launching as well as me or the motor gliders, so they suffered somewhat.
We managed 6 rounds in quite hot conditions making for an exhausting first day.
Day 2 and conditions started even lighter, and with hesitation on which way to point the winches, took a while to get started.
Looking at the forecast and at the request of the CD, we turned the flight line around which seemed correct initially,
with a light breeze into wind at the time. Of course once we set up the wind swung around, and was downwind for the rest of the day.
I heard a comment that I was being handicapped, since I was leading from the previous day. I took this as a challenge.
The rest of the guys winching weren’t happy launching downwind against motor gliders which would easily do 200 metres plus.
Two competitors switched to motor gliders, and the rest had had enough, packed up, and went home.
This left me as the sole pilot winching, and launching downwind, in a sea of motor gliders, at least I wouldn't have any line crosses.
I flew my super light Perfection at 1700g, but even trying to swing around, somewhat into wind on launch,
it was a struggle to get anywhere near the motor gliders on launch height.
However the conditions were so light and thermally, finding lift wasn’t very hard,
I would’ve struggled, I think, if it was hang time conditions.
Some said I had an advantage with being able to nose into the landing spot, (ie no motor to damage) which was maybe true,
however I was the only pilot to achieve all my flight times, so at the end of the day, it was still a thermal competition.
Anyway we managed to get through 3 rounds, before lunch, presentations, and a long trip home.
I heard from the motor glider flyers, a lot of whom hadn’t flown open thermal rules before,
that they found it much less stressful rule-wise, especially since the launches and landings we staggered with the 12 minute working time,
and you could go over your flight time without penalty as opposed to f5j,
and of course, launching to 200 metres, which is normally a last resort in f5j.
A big thanks to Hutton Oddy, for cd-ing, and Kevin Smeaton for score keeping and every one else who helped organise, feed and generally help out
at another great Armidale Sailplane Expo.
The place getters:
1st Jim Houdalakis
2nd Alan Mayhew
3rd David Pratley
This was also round 2 in the National Open Thermal AusTour list of events.
regards
Jim
armidate2019_open_places

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