Model Flight Midway Cup Open and f5j Horsham 2019

We had 17 starters for the Model Flight Midway cup held in Horsham, which was also the VMAA state championships in Open Thermal in Victoria.

This year we decided to run an f5j and an open event together, unfortunately we didn’t have the numbers, ie with enough pilots in a heat, to run them at the same time as we're planning to at Jerilderie. Since you could only fly one class or the other, we ended up with 10 pilots flying open thermal with winches, and 7 flying f5j, so we decided to interleave the heats of open and f5j, with every third heat in a round being all up f5j.

We had an international flavour this year with Frank Campbell, an Aussie expat, living in the U.S., and while visiting family here, coming along to compete in f5j.

We had Don Farrar join us in f5j, a keen f5j flyer from NSW, and who has competed in Europe, on an "f5j" event tour of southern Australian States.

It was also good to see Rolf Hedt, finally flying in the f5j event as a host club pilot, rather than just helping organise things.

Weather on the Saturday started very marginal, with a light shower while we were setting up the field first thing, but by the time we got going the weather had improved, and continued to improve over the 2 days. Wind was light to medium strength on the Saturday with the clouds clearing somewhat by the end of the day which made for long lift cylcles, and not very strong lift.

Sunday on the other hand, was great, blue skies, even lighter wind conditions, made for some lower f5j launches but I think people were on the conservative side. So most people stuffed up flights on the Saturday, and with most getting their times on the Sunday.

I want to thank Dan Haskell for CDing and managing to also compete in the open class, and Gerry Carter for managing the scoring side, although he made things easier by going to online scoring for score entry.

Also I'd like to thank the members of the Wimmera Model Aircraft Association for the use of their field, and for the great bbq lunches they provided on both days, and particulary Rolf Hedt for his efforts in organising things locally.

As well thanks to the main event sponsor:

Model Flight, represented by Mike O'Reilly who once again generously provided prizes.

In conclusion, the placings, and congrats, goes to:

Open Thermal and VMAA state champions

1st Darrel Blow

2nd Greg Potter

3rd Simon Morris

and in F5J

1st Andrew Meyer

2nd Jim Houdalakis

3rd Marcus Stent

Finally the perpetual Model Flight Midway Cup for 2019