The forecast for Sunday 11th September was not looking good mid-week, but things improved very quickly leading into the weekend (normally they get worse!) and in the end we got very lucky with great weather for the first event of the season.  It was a day of two halves,  the first 3 rounds before lunch saw very light winds, most of the time downwind, and light but consistent thermals.  Most pilots were getting their times and the landings were spot on - many 100s, 99s, and 98s.

2016/2017 thermal season gets underway with round one group one

Bob Wilson showing a local Eagle how to thermal.  The eagle got away eventually

Dan Haskell with his perfection LS

Dave with his Maxa and Hugh with the clock

Graham Norman with his American made Icon 2.  

As we stopped for lunch the forecast 12 knots from the north west kicked in and it got cold! The afternoon was a different competition and in the end everyone except Jim H dropped some time.  Jim flew a perfect competition to win the openning round by over 200 points - well done Jim.  Dan Haskell was second and Tom Dupuche rounded out the top three.

Final placings:

1st Jim Houdalakis - 5997.1

2nd Daniel Haskell - 5787.6

3rd Tom Dupuche - 5754.4

overallsept.pdf 

flightssept.pdf

The next thermal competition is in Wentworth - NSW.  See you there!

Cheers,

Tom Dupuche

Dear All,

The RCGA AGM was held on the 14th July and we have a new committee. Full minutes of the AGM will be available shortly.  Firstly I would like to say a big thank-you to those on the outgoing committee for all of their work over the last year and more. Marcus Stent, Dave Millward and Gerry Carter. And another thank-you to Jim Houdalakis and Daniel Haskell who will continue on in 2016/2017.  The new RCGA committee for 2016/2017 is:

RCGA Committee

Tom Dupuche - President

Daniel Haskell - Secretary

Jim Houdalakis - Tresurer

RCGA Calendar

The calendar was also agree and we are looking forward to a great season in 2016/2017.  There are 26 events that will count towards 4 leagues.  10 Thermal events, 10 F3K Hand Launch events and 6 F5J Electric Glider events along with the Grand Championship.

Grab your calendar here rcga calendar 2016-17 v2.pdf

Cheers,

Tom Dupuche

Marcus and his Vibe take out the last event of the year...just!

F3K 10 - 3 July 2016

The last event of the RCGA year was F3K at Diggers Rest and it was a sunny but extremely windy (7m/s+) day.

5 pilots braved the tough, low lift conditions and there was only 3 flights that made it to 3 minutes for the entire day.

The lead changed 3 times throughout the day. Firstly Jon Day with his NXT started on fire with multiple 1000pt rounds and we were starting to think how we were going to catch him. Then Marcus upped his ballast from 25g to 75g and his Vibe came alive and this started a run of winning times (and some lift!!!) to take the 1000 in 5 of the next 7 rounds and take the lead. After a charge break, David changed to his heavier Snipe with 100g of ballast and after 4 more rounds had taken the lead by less than 100 points. It came down to the last round of the day and Marcus managed to get some (relatively) good lift to take the win! Dave came second with Jon third.

A huge thanks to Robert who is new to DLG and timed for us for most of the day. He came to fly but wisely decided not to fly due to the extreme winds.

See you next year,

Marcus

f3k10_overall_results.pdf

f3k10_flight_scores.pdf

Fourteen pilots attended the penultimate thermal league event for the season and despite wind and rain on the days preceding, the forecast for the day was for light winds and no rain, which thankfully is how it turned out. It was great to welcome Jaime Cannon and Clive Warman who made the journey from NSW (Sydney and Newcastle) and to see Graham Norman dust off his models and get them in the air after a hiatus for most of the year. We all looked forward to getting some serious competition air time and fine tuning before Jerilderie, only two weeks away!

13 pilots in front of the camera with Marcus Stent taking the shot

Conditions proved to be challenging, and achieving 10 minutes was not always easy. However the best pilots on the day managed to work the conditions well and find enough lift to get their time. Most of the models flown were Perfections, Maxas or Explorers, as seems to be usual nowadays. I wonder if there are any other new model designs to be unveiled at the upcoming world championships? It was great to see Dave Pratley’s very light new Explorer 3 making the most of some low level lift and saving himself from a dropper. It was also good to see Graham flying his Icon 2 smoothly and beautifully in the challenging conditions.

Jamie Cannon hitting the spot with Clive Warman timing.  Jamie has represented Australia at the F3K worlds and great to see Jamie getting into F3J/Open Thermal.  No doubt he will be fighting it out at the top very soon. A huge thanks to Jamie and Clive for making the trip down!

Bob Wilson with his Maxa.  Bob finished the day strongly with his last 3 rounds all 960+.

After six rounds there was less that 30 points between the top three places and 12 points between 1st and 2nd. It came down to the last round to decide the competition. Consistent and high quality flying by Tom Dupuche finally gave him the edge over Marcus, and Tom, emerged the victor for the second competition in a row! Gerry finished third separated by only 26 points or 0.37% of the winners score!

Tom Dupuche's Pike Perfection Light Strong being launch by Daniel Haskell.  The working time clock showing 10:58 left...only a little bit of sand bagging!

Daniel Haskell's Pike Perfection Extreme.

Hugh Blackburn with his Fosa Lift.  He flew it near the end of the day and easliy got his time in very light conditions. 

The completion ran very smoothly due in no small part to the incredible Glider Score program designed and built in downtown Glen Iris by Gerry Carter. But this competition was even more professional with the use of the new RCGA working time LED display also made Gerry – great work and thanks from all of us.

So at the end of the day it was:

1^st Place Tom Dupuche  - 6991

2^nd Place Marcus Stent - 6984

3^rd Place Gerry Carter - 6965

thermal9_overall.pdf

thermal_9flights.pdf

Tom's win sees the Thermal League go down to the wire.  With Marcus ahead but Tom still in the hunt at the final round in Jerilderie.

See you all at Jerilderie – Daniel Haskell

The 2015/2016 season is over! Congratulations to the pilots that placed and thanks to everyone who participated in events through the season.

THERMAL LEAGUE

Congratulations to these pilots.
1. Marcus Stent
2. Tom Dupuche
3. Theo Arvanitakis

It was very close at the end but Marcus clinched it by finishing ahead of Tom at Jerilderie.

Full results here thermalleague.pdf

F5J LEAGUE

 Congratulations to these pilots.
1. David Pratley
2. Russell Wiltshire
3. Jim Houdalakis 

Full results here f5j_league.pdf

F3K LEAGUE

Congratulations to these pilots.

1. Marcus Stent
2. Jon Day
3. Hugh Blackburn

Full results here f3kleagueresults2016.pdf

GRAND CHAMPION

Congratulations to these pilots.

1. Marcus Stent
2. David Pratley
3. Hugh Blackburn

Full results here grandchamp2016.pdf

F5J State Championship 15 May 2016

Report by Gerry Carter

Bob Wilson, Norm Ripp, Wrenford Brown, Jim Houdalakis, Gerry Carter, David Milward, Bruce Clapperton, Dave Pratley, Russell Wiltshire (mIssing - Andrew Fenech)

We were fortunate to have a day of flyable weather in Melbourne after continuous strong winds and some rain for what seemed like weeks.

10 pilots made the trip to Diggers Rest and we flew for as long as the weather remained reasonable. That gave us five rounds with the last flight group dealing with increasing wind strength.

The flight scores tell the story. Some brave attempts at a low launch altitude with only one managing to fly out the working time. Lots and lots of outlandings with zero landing points. The occassional zero score for landing more than 75 metres from the designated landing spot. Some pilots, for various reasons did not fly all of the rounds and that reflects in their scores.

But overall, it was great to get out flying again and I believe that everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I certainly did!

Here are the top placings -

First place and State Champion - Wrenford Brown
Second place - Russell Wiltshire
Third place - Dave Milward

Click on these links to see the scores-
f5j_overall_results.pdf
f5j_flight_scores.pdf
f5j_height_penalty.pdf
f5j_landing_results.pdf

April 10th saw 7 pilots head to Ballarat Model Club's new field to fly round 8 of the RCGA thermal league.  As always the Ballarat Club turned on fantastic hospitality including treating us to a great lunch. Many thanks to the club for hosting us - we always enjoy the trip to Ballarat.

The forecast was for wind and it didn't disappoint.  When we arrived at about 9am the wind was up to about 8 knots but by the time we got underway it was closer to 15 knots and climbed to the forecast of 18 or so knots.  Needless to say it was a tricky day and there were a number of out landings during the day.  Gerry neatly landing on the bank of the nearby dam twice. Lucky the dam was low!!

Don Woodward joined the fun having flown F3B in WA many moons ago and it didn't take Don any time getting back into the swing of things.  At the end of round 3 and at the lunch break Don was leading with 3,000 points, Daniel Haskell was 2nd and Marcus Stent 3rd.

The afternoon conditions continued to mix things up and the wind tried pilots abilities to make it back to the landing zone.  When it was all done and dusted after 7 rounds the results were are follows:

1st Tom Dupuche

2nd Bernie Sizer

3rd Don Woodward

overall-2.pdf

flightscores.pdf

Congrats to the top three and a great return to competition model flying by Don.    

Again a big thank-you to the Ballarat club and the help given by their members that allowed us to fly 2 groups per round.  Particularly to keen glider pilot George who called for us all day!!

See you at the next one - 29 May at Diggers Rest.

Asia Pacific F3K Open 2016 Results

WOW!  What an event!  31 competitors from 7 countries competing in the most well organised and largest F3K event ever seen in Australia! Not only that, it had the current F3K World Champion (AlexHewson) and World Championship team (NZ).

It lived up to all the expectations, thanks to the hard work of ShonaGuest, JonDay and the APO support team of TimLennon (CD), Dave Milward, Wendy Jones, Gerry Carter, Marcus Stent and the entire Longwood community. The entire event ran like clockwork from start to finish!

A big thanks to our Sponsors in the VMAA/MAAA and the Strathbogie Shire Council.

The event had all the ups and downs you would expect from a world class event with Asia Pacific's best F3K pilots fighting it out in tough Aussie conditions (38 deg.C and windy every day). At one point AlexHewson almost missed the fly offs and then showed his class to come back and win the APO. Well done Alex!

The team event saw the currnet NZ World Champions take a strangle hold on top spot from the beginning and never looked like losing it. Austalia did well on home soil to finished second and Singapore pipped the 2014 APO Champions (China) to finish third. Well done everyone!

A huge thanks to all the competitors for travelling so far, their great sportsmanship, their sense of fun and their great comraderie. I know everyone is looking forward to catching up again at the next one (rumored to be NZ)!

Cheers,

Marcus

More pictures can be found on the facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/365136623614060/

2016_apo_flyoff_results1.pdf

2016_apo_flyoff_flight_scores1.pdf 

2016_apo_team_results.pdf

2016_apo_prelim_results.pdf

2016_apo_prelim_flight_scores.pdf