F3J - Thermal duration F3J International at Milang SA
F3J International at Milang SA
We were fortunate to have excellent weather over the two days. Hot, but not too hot. Humid but no rain. A breeze, but never too strong. Pilots came from as far away as New Zealand so it was great to have them there.
Seven rounds and half of round 8 were flown on the Saturday. The 12 preliminary rounds were completed and followed by three fly-off rounds on the Sunday.
Everybody was well catered for with the van coming out from the Milang Bakery each day and with water and soft drinks available on the field.
Scoring was handled by Manny Stoupos and we must all thank him for doing that. This took away the distraction of having pilots try to keep this up to date as well as flying.
The pilots were organised (by themselves) into teams of four, so everybody was busy for practically the whole time. Not much time for socialising during the flying, but made up for this during the lunch break and also by meeting up for dinner each evening.
At the end of the preliminary rounds (with each pilot's worst score not counted) the top seven pilots went on to fly three 15 minute fly-off rounds.
They were:
- Joe Wurts (10,993.52)
- Kevin Botherway (10,987.44)
- Nick Chabrel (10,981.26)
- Mike O'Reilly (10,973.18)
- Theo Arvanitakis (10,968.04)
- Jim Houdalakis (10,944.03)
- Jamie Namcarrow (10,898.47)
Prelim-Overall Prelim-FlightScores Prelim-Landings Teams
By this time there was a healthy wind and visibility was reduced due to the hazy sky.
In the fly-off some pilots went a very, very long way downwind to the extent that they walked some distance from the landing spots to keep their gliders in view. This didn't work out too well for one pilot who had a long walk to retrieve his glider.
The final result was
1. Joe Wurts (2,994.38)
2. Mike O'Reilly (2,971.99)
3. Theo Arvanitakis (2,971.79)
Final-Results FlyOff-Results FlyOff-FlightScores
Congratulations to Joe Wurts and to all who took part. Particular thanks go to those who put in the effort behind the scenes to make this a great competition for everybody. Thank you for that.