F5J Electric Thermal Glider

F5J Northern Flying Group May 2025

Five pilots rocked up to a cold and windy F5J competition last Sunday at the Northern Flying Group state field.

It was good to see Dave Milward joining in again after a long break, unfortunately he only had a light Plus f5j and struggled to penetrate into wind.

It was also good to see Marcus back after the world champs and a long holiday.

Seeing as there were only five of us, we decided to fly all up at once per round, which meant no callers/spotters to help.

We managed 8 rounds, and despite the cold and wind, there were definitly thermals moving through to catch.

Results:

Jim 1st 6820

Marcus 2nd 5990

Hugh 3rd 5619

pdf f5j_nfg_18_05_25_flight scores.pdf

pdf f5j_nfg_18_05_25_overall.pdf

See you at Jerliderie next for the LSF Nationals for F3j and F5j

Results F5J VARMS 23 March 2025

Finally some nice weather greeted the 8 pilots who turned up last Sunday for our latest f5j comp. I’d say light winds, for the most part, with about 50% cloud cover. So not really conditions for fai planes, but not really for windy weather planes either. Unfortunately the wind direction started east south east, and since we can’t fly to the west at the VARMS field, it meant you had to go upwind to find lift, and leave it once above yourself to hopefully find some more lift up wind, so somewhat challenging conditions.

Wind turned to the south for the last few rounds, so back to the regular chasing lift.

Congrats to Hugh Blackburn in 1st, with some great flying after coming back from the f5j worlds as a wildcard entry,

myself (jim) in 2nd place, after screwing up round 2 and then going conservative on launch heights for the rest of my launches,

and with Theo Arvanitakis in 3rd, with some pretty low launches, which didn’t always pay off.

Thanks to Bruce Clapperton for CDing and scoring and everyone else who helped.

Link to Flights

Link to Results

See you next in Horsham for the Modelflight Midway Cup and VMAA f5j state champs. We’ve got a good number of entries so far, and theres still time to enter here

Happy thermalling,

Jim Houdalakis

Entry Midway Cup and VMAA state champs F5J

The RCGA is pleased to again partner with the Wimmera Model Aircraft Association to host the

Modelflight Midway Cup and VMAA F5J State championships 2025

on the 5th and 6th April at Horsham. Entry form and details : pdf f5j_midway cup 2025 entry.pdf

See you there,

RCGA Committee

Modelflight Midway Cup

Hi all,

Please see attached the entry form for the 2024 Modelflight Midway Cup.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Committee

midway_cup_entry_form_2024.pdf

F5J Varms 14 January 2024

Hi all,

even though there were a few regulars away, we still had 11 starters for F5J last Sunday with the forecast being for warm weather, with winds building.

The winds started at light to medium strength, with the forecast for them to build. Unfortunately the winds started off easterly and were occasionally south easterly. For those not familiar with the new Varms field, it's basically a large runway to take off from and land on, and the no-fly area begins at the west side of the runway. So essentially we couldn't fly down wind, making chasing thermals impossible, and making landing approaches challenging.

To the east it's an untamed field of tall flowers and bush rising to a forest of trees and hills to the east about 400 metres away, and a forest to the south about 300 metres away. Sometimes you can see the thermals / dust devils work their way through the flowers until they reach us on the runway, and this was the case in the second heat where I watched one head straight for the centre of our flight line and me wishing we could chase it down wind. With the start countdown almost at zero, the dust devil went through Bob, causing his plane to twist in his hand and crunch a wingtip. Not a good start for Bob.

So challenging conditions, where more often than not, you had to abandon thermals at the restricted zone and try to find the next one upwind, and with the wind building, and the thermal cycles getting longer, it was getting harder, reflected by a lot of short flights in the scores.
Eventually the "sea breeze" kicked in for the last couple of rounds, and the gustier winds swung to the south, which meant you could follow thermals down wind, becoming a bit of a good heat, bad heat, situation.

Special mention must go to Kevin Fryer who fought on through the day flying an Old Timer, even winning a heat. Eventually it got a bit too windy for his plane, but it flew very well for the conditions.

Anyway not being able to chase lift down wind is my Kryptonite, but others handled the upwing thermalling much better than me.
So in that regard,
Congratulations to

David Pratley 1st

Rod Watkins 2nd

Hugh Blackburn 3rd

flight_scores_f5j_varms_2024_01_14.pdf

pdf

overall_results_f5j_varms_2024_01_14.pdf

Thanks to everyone who helped me setup and pack up,

and thanks to VARMS for letting us use the field for the competition.

Next, to those going, I'll see you at Armidale NSW for the Sailplane Expo over the Australia Day Weekend

regards

Jim Houdalakis

PS I forgot to take some pics, so if anyone took any photo's of the day, could you send them through and I'll add to the website

F5J Electric Thermal Glider

F5J Northern Flying Group May 2025

Results F5J VARMS 23 March 2025

Entry Midway Cup and VMAA state champs F5J

Modelflight Midway Cup

F5J Varms 14 January 2024

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