Hi everyone

Well, that was two very tough days of flying at Diggers Rest. Most of the pictures shown below were taken on the Saturday (by Louise - thanks!) when the weather was better but it was pretty windy most of that day, averaging about 6 m/s by the end of the day. On the Sunday it was even windier (and a whole lot wetter as well) with the average speed

about 8 m/s by the end of the day (though it never stayed above 8 m/s for a complete minute!). We stopped for rain quite a few times on Sunday. Yeah, a true Melbourne summer. Partly owing to the weather, turnout was not so great, and there were only five flyers who stayed for both days - naturally our 2015 WC team comes from that group. We had Carl Strautins (regular F3B and F3J team member) and Jamie Cannon (not so long returned from the UK) come down from Sydney for the TS trial.

 

On Saturday (RCGA F3K league #5) we had 7 flyers though Dave Milward only flew two rounds before retiring with a damaged XXlite, and 6 flyers were there all day. Carl and Marcus were both doing OUTSTANDING launches, topping out around 70 m. That was frightening for the rest of us! The day outcome (and the TS standings at the end) was:

F3K#5:

1. Marcus Stent 100%
2. Carl Strautins 98.04%
3. Hugh Blackburn 93.94%
4. Jon Day 92.89%
5. Jamie Cannon 91.69%
6. Jim Houdalakis 50.27%
7. Dave Milward 11.06%

f3k_5_saturday_overall_results.pdf

On Sunday (RCGA F3K League #6) we had 6 flyers. I don't recall seeing the sun much that day! It was the worst weather day I can recall here, though our 2011 WC TS trials were probably no better. It was winder than Saturday and lift was really shear-dominated (i.e. mostly surfing on streamwise rolls). Hey, I sound like I'm complaining? Sorry. I loved it really. Tim Lennon was our new flyer for the day and was doing well with his XXlite, a good choice for the conditions.

F3K#6:

1. Hugh Blackburn 100%
2. Jamie Cannon 96.3%
3. Marcus Stent 91.0%
4. Jon Day 88.9%
5. Carl Strautins 87.4%
6. Tim Lennon 81.3%

f3k_6_sunday_overall_results.pdf

The Team results are drawn from the combined scores of the two days but with one dropper for the overall set of times.

2015 AUS F3K Team results:

1. Marcus Stent 100%
2. Hugh Blackburn 99.6%
3. Jamie Cannon 97.8%
4. Carl Strautins 97.7%
5. Jon Day 94.9%
6. Tim Lennon 35.4%
7. Jim Houdalakis 30.7%
8. Dave Milward 6.5%

f3k_team_selection_overall_results.pdf

f3k_team_selection_flight_scores1.pdf

As you can see, Jamie really came from behind on the second day, climbing two places to make his way into the team. (Just! A bit of a heart-stopper all round.) Carl had some great flying on this day (one standout for me was round 20 where both he and Marcus went early and far downwind to take 5 minute maxes, leaving me scratching) but he was hurt by just a few landouts. As we all have been at some time, right?

A very big thank-you to Jon Day for CDing both days and providing the very welcome prizes too!

Hugh

 

We now have six F3K events flown so here are the top six pilots at this stage of the F3K League.

For the full results, click on this link rcga_f3k_league.pdf .