Modelflight Midway Cup | VIC State Champs | Austour Round #2 | Results and Report

If you weren't in Horsham for the weekend of the 3rd and 4th of December, 2016 then you missed out big time!!  21 pilots, 12 rounds, 1.5 days of great flying.

After free practice on Friday pilots met at The Exchange Hotel for dinner and pilot registration.  The Exchange has now become the regular meeting place to start the SA vs VIC rivalry and this year was no different.  With VIC leading 2 wins to 0, SA were out for blood and had great representation with 14 pilots.  The decision was made to start at 8am to aim to get in 8 rounds as Saturday was the better day from a forecast perspective.

Saturday morning and the forecast didn't dissapoint - very little wind and blue skies greeted the pilots as they arrived at the burnt creek road field.  Well organised pilots meant that we got underway just after 8am.  After tricky morning conditions the day turned very thermally and all rounds were won with at least one pilot flying out their time.  Regular downwind lauches proved challenging but with the wind moving around a lot there wasn't a need to move the flightline.  At the end of day one we had gotten through 8 rounds and the scores were very close.

Saturday night dinner was at the Bull and Mouth Hotel. Good food, good beer and good company meant for a great night.  

Sunday morning we again started at 8am but the conditions were very different to Saturday.  Groups were regualrly won with 6 or 7 minutes and positions were mixed up all day. It certainly wasn't a landing competition and made for some exciting changes throughout the day.  We flew 4 rounds until just before noon and then packed up and headed for lunch and presentations.

When the dust had settled and 12 rounds were complete it was South Australia who won the Midway Cup for their first time by 105 points - 35,044 to 34,939.

Jamie Nancarrow who emerged as Victorian State Champion and Austour round 2 winner.  Well done Jamie!!

Results

horsham2016overall.pdf

horsham2016flights.pdf

horsham2016teams.pdf

horsham2016landings.pdf

Austour after 2 rounds

http://www.lsfaustralia.org.au/events/2016/horsham/Austour%20(2)%202017.pdf

A big thank you to Adam, Rolf and Vic from the Horsham Club for hosting us and great hospitality.  And a big thank-you to the team from Modelflight for their support and sponsorship of the event.

Have a great Christmas and New Year everyone.  See you at the next one!! RCGA round #5 on the 8th Jan at Diggers Rest.

Cheers,

Tom Dupuche

6 November 2016

                                Dan             Jim                                       Don                Bob   Gerry(kneeling)                  Tom

Weather conditions in the early morning were a little bit discouraging for a day out flying but things changed nicely as the day progressed. We went from warm jackets to combat the chilling breeze to wearing tee-shirts by the end of the day.

In similar fashion the conditions varied widely. Tough conditions to begin with, progressing to thermals everywhere in the middle and then changing completely for the last round where thermals were incredibly weak, if you could find them at all.

But it was a very enjoyable day and those who thought about coming, and didn't, really missed out.

Bob Wilson sat out for the morning flying and helped with timing and calling. Eventually the wind abated and Bob flew in the last five rounds.

Apart from a few line breaks (actually quite a few) and some long distance retrieval of parachutes, there weren't any incidents at all.

At the lunch break, after three rounds, Don Woodward had a narrow lead over the rest, but really, it was anybodies contest to win from there. In fact all pilots had bad scores in those first three rounds and in the end, it was those scores together with the Round 8 scores that decided the final rankings.

Congratulations to the winner (and leader from round 5 to the finish)

1. Jim Houdalakis 7724.90
2. Tom Dupuche 7702.14
3. Daniel Haskell 7685.39

overallresults.pdf     flightscores.pdf     landingresults.pdf

The next event is Horsham on 3 - 4 December. Not to be missed.

This annual competition, already a part of the RCGA Thermal League events, suddenly became more significant. It is first on the list of the LSFs recently announced Austour series of 5 events. There was more at stake than usual.

Wentworth was packed. The Country Music Festival saw the local caravan park full with lots of vans being directed to the 'overflow' area, the racecourse, where we were flying. Every night the three hotels were full with patrons so getting a meal was not necessarily easy or quick. Despite the numbers, the meals came out in good time.

The previous week had seen some horrendous weather striking South Australia and causing a state wide power failure. The hope was that this weather system would abate sufficiently to allow the competition to go ahead over the weekend. And it did, for the Saturday. Sunday was a different story. Given the weather forecast, it would have been understandable if some of the 20 entrants had decided to stay at home but this didn't happen. Everybody came and that was terrific.

These 'away' competitions are as much about the socialising as well as the flying so lots of pilots and partners met up for dinner on both the Friday and Saturday nights. Very convivial, enjoyable and interesting.

Saturday was a great day for competition with seven rounds completed plus half of round eight. The field was the greenest, wettest and softest that we have ever seen, but still OK for cars to drive out to drop off all the gear. The wind strength was very flyable and well within limits but still caught out a few pilots downwind, including myself. This was a bad thing as the terrain downwind was all trees and water. Luckily there was very little model damage as a result of outlandings, no doubt helped by the very soft, rain soaked, soil.

When flying started, and in fact for most of the day, thermals were difficult to find and tricky to follow. Despite this, most flight groups ended with the time being flown out by the winner. But quite a few times, the next placed pilot was well short of the winning time and this spread the scores, a lot. Only one pilot largely avoided this issue and flew out his time for the whole competition.

Theo Arvanitakis launches Mike O'Reilly's Pike Perfection (Photos courtesy of Terry Dunn - thanks Terry for the great snaps)

Pike Perfection on approach (Photos courtesy of Terry Dunn)

We broke for lunch at around 12:30pm and went off to the pavilion where a buffet lunch of meat and salads was all set out. Plently of good food for everybody. This was followed by fruit salad and ice-cream! Tea, coffee and soft drinks also available.

We finished up at around 5pm and taking a lead from us, the AFL Grand Final finished at the same time! Pretty happy about the Western Bulldogs winning. We all met up for dinner and to review the scores so far. Unfortunately there was a glitch in the scoring program (all scores had been entered correctly) so the results that we saw didn't give the right placings. This issue was fixed next morning.

Paul Moorfield with a nice launch (Photos courtesy of Terry Dunn)

Another approach shot (Photos courtesy of Terry Dunn)

Sunday's forecast was for strong winds in the early morning, rapidly increasing and thunderstorms developing by the afternoon. Not very promising. Unfortunately the forecast was correct and after canvassing the various pilots the decision was taken to call off the competition. So the results were based on the seven completed rounds.

Everybody packed up and gathered in the pavilion for the results and presentations. There was a prize for everybody as well as a random draw for the major prize and a Model Flight voucher.

After the mud (there was no dust) settled we had

1st Tom Dupuche on 6988.5

2nd Greg Potter on 6866.7

3rd Nick Chabrel on 6857.1

Thanks once again to Darrel Blow, Garry Whitfield, Jennifer, Michell, Faye and all the other helpers for putting on a great competition. And thanks to Terry Dunn for the great photos taken from https://www.facebook.com/Dunn-Photographics-1189233391090724/.  Much appreciated.

overallresults_wentworth.pdf
teamresults_wentworth.pdf
flightscores_wentworth.pdf
landingscores_wentworth.pdf

Cheers,

Gerry Carter