Vic Thermal Champs / Model Flight Midway Cup

22 pilots made the trip from Melbourne, Adelaide and Mildura to Horsham, Victoria for this new combined event.
The winner would be the Victorian State Thermal Champion for 2015-15 and the winning state (based on the scores of the top 6 pilots from each state) would take home the Model Flight Midway Cup.

Friday 5 December
It got off to a great start with practise flying on the Friday followed by dinner at the Exchange Hotel.

Saturday 6 December
The wind forecast was for high winds on Saturday and the forecasters got it right this time. We managed to fly three rounds before taking a vote and stopping for the day. It was just as well because the wind strength became greater with gusts up to 54kph. Even in the time that we were flying we had gusts of up to 50kph. Unfortunately this led to quite a few models coming to grief including some that were totally wrecked. But after packing up we enjoyed our lunch provided by the WMAA team and they had very kindly put up marquees and set out chairs for our benefit. All very civilised. The rest of the day was free but we all met up again for dinner at the Thai Basil restaurant. We had booked for 30 and that's what we had. Rather than everybody ordering separately we had a banquet so the food just kept coming, plenty of it and all very good. Because of the lost flying time we decided to try for an early start on the Sunday and that's what happened. We started right on 8:00am.

Sunday 7 December
Sunday's wind could be described as moderate strength and not difficult to handle at all. But the overcast conditions made the thermals very elusive and the flight times reflect this very well. With all scores counting and the South Australian contingent missing a few of their top pilots, a bad score really hurt their chances of taking the Midway Cup. As one pilot put it, it's easy to go from rooster to feather duster in these conditions. We paused for an early lunch at about 11:30am then continued on to finish with 9 rounds flown. By the end there were good thermals about and once again, the winning scores from each flight group reflect this.

Model Flight Midway Cup
The final scores of the top six Victorian pilots totalled 49,561.1 and for the top six South Australian pilots, 44770.8. It was a pretty comprehensive win for the Victorian contingent with Victorian pilots taking five of the first six placings.

Victorian State Thermal Championship
Showing his great skills in the most difficult of conditions, the Victorian State Thermal Champion for 2014-15 is David Hobby. Congratulations David!

All the results are here
overall_results.pdf
flight_scores.pdf
landing_results.pdf

A lot of people helped to make this event happen and to be the success that it was, despite the weather conditions.
Particular thanks to Vic Cresp and his team from the WMAA for giving up their field for our use and giving up a large part of their weekend to be at the field and making sure that we were well catered for. That was all much appreciated.

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