From left to right

Tom Dupuche, Dan Haskell, David Pratley,

Alan Mayhew, Gerry Carter, Bernie Sizer,

Theo Arvanitakis, David Hobby, Rod Watkins,

Jim Houdalakis, Nick Watkins (in front)

Eleven pilots made the trip to Ballarat for a great days competition and once again were made to feel very welcome by the Ballarat Aeromodellers. It is always a treat to go to Ballarat because the field is wonderful and the members look after us so well. They put on a great barbeque lunch for us once again and I must say that having hot food on a cold day was very welcome. We thank them for that.  There's a photo of the chefs at work just below.

It was good to see Rod Watkins (and junior helper) back again and Tom Dupuche was flying some new models (may explain his lower than usual placing).  Unfortunately Graham Norman had to pull out after the first few rounds.

The day was fairly cold, but not too cold. There was some drizzle for a short while but we flew right through that without any problems. Lift? Could be difficult to find and when found was often not very strong. But most flight groups made their target time. Wind? Also not too strong and lightened off in the later part of the day. So overall we had very good and sometimes quite challenging conditions.

In the end it turned out to be a two person contest with an extremely small margin separating them.  Nobody else was within striking distance.

Congratulations to everybody but especially to

1. Bernie Sizer (6987)
2. David Hobby (6985)
3.Theo Arvanitakis (6622)

Click on the liinks to see the full results.

Overall Results
Flight Scores
Landing Scores

The Ballarat Chefs.  Thanks guys.

Hi all,

The Victorian State Thermal Championships were run and won over the weekend of the 21/22 April at Diggers Rest and the conditions were very challeging. Breezy conditions on Saturday turned into very windy conditions on the Sunday, so those that did well thoroughly deserved their rewards.

A big thanks to our interstate competitors of Greg Potter, Robert Gunn and Nick Chabrell who made the effort to drive over from Adelaide for the event. It really added to the atmosphere and a great time was had by all!

Congratulations to the winners 

1st David Hobby

2nd Daniel Haskell

3rd Nick Chabrell

victorian_state_thermal_champs-overall.pdf

Thermal League 7 was scored from Saturday's results and Thermal League 8 was scored from Sunday's results

thermal_league7-overall_results.pdf

thermal_league8-overall_results.pdf

league7-flight_scores-duration.pdf

league8-flight_scores-duration.pdf

Cheers,

Marcus

Graham and his Espada

Lots more photo's here....

Read more...

Thermal #6, F3J Milang International

Seven pilots from Victoria made the trip over and enjoyed some great weather, great competition and great hospitality from the SSL club. Thanks for putting on such a great event!

Congratulations to:

1st David Hobby

2nd Nick Chabrell

3rd Mike O'Reilly

f3j_international_2013-flyoff_results.pdf

In the preliminaries it was:

1st Carl Strautins

2nd David Hobby

3rd Bernie Sizer.

f3j_international_2013-prelim_results.pdf

I got the following from Jim Houdalakis.  Thanks Jim..

Details:
24 fliers 6 teams of 4
Saturday:
Overcast, hot, humid, some showers mid day. Really calm conditions and hard to pick lift. It was also downwind launches for atleast 6 of the 8 rounds on Saturday. I zigged when i shouldve zagged twice on the Saturday, so I was sitting in 8th

Sunday:

Was the same as Saturday but with blue skies and hotter. Lift was a bit stronger so I found it a bit easier. So by the end of prelims I climbed to 7th but not good enough, 12 points short of Jamie in 6th.

Those who had light planes had the easier time of it.

Only Carl didn't have a dropper. David Hobby only had one because he snapped a super light joiner in his perfection on launch. Ignoring Sambas warning not to winch with this joiner.

Prelims our team did best Carl 1st Hobby 2nd, Bernie 3rd then Nick 4th Mike 5th Jamie 6th

After lunch Sunday started the flyoffs which got windier once the sea breeze kicked in. (no more flying superlights)
It was tough flying in the heat for an hour with 3 short breaks to reset. I think the whole weekend we got to mid 30 temperatures.

I called for David Hobby who was very consistent and won with 4 x 15 minute flights and good landings
Second was Nick, Third was Mike.

Carl gambled on the first heat with a fast launch and had to relaunch, he cracked his boom at the tail at some point and his rudder was drooping so he was out of action.
Bernie fluttered his ailerons in the first heat so he didn't do so well.

Still fun had by all,
you should've been there!

Jim