After the previous f5j event got blown out, it was good to have a calm and sunny afternoon for RCGA round 1 of  f5j electric glider  at the VMAA, state field in daraweit-guim. It surprised me, since the State Field  location is notoriously windy.

After a great lunch kindly prepared by the Northern Flying Group, we got stuck into the flying. In contrast to the morning's f3k competition's strong and tight thermals, the afternoon was dominated by big broad thermals which softened in strength as the day progressed,

David had some bad luck with a thermal willy willy damaging one of his 2 planes before we even started, He also had persistent power issues, which with the accompanying low starts, helped him win several heats.

Wren had his brand new f5j Kappa  35 which looks impressive but needed more sorting out by Wren.

Working the tree lines payed off some of the  time, but with the trees not that close, of course it meant needing good depth perception.

Bob flew his Ava to great effect although he did managing to land on the wrong side of the trees one heat, unscathed.

Marcus with another new plane, a home build by Alan Mayhew, called a Preigo. Alan may be regretting selling it, because Marcus put in an amazing flight in the back corner with it, where the tree lines meet, alternating above and below tree height, in the end winning the heat.

Unfortunately attempting to emulate his low level escape on his last flight, landed Marcus in the top branches of a 25 metre tall gum tree.

So once we were finished and packed up, it was off to see if we could get it out of the tree.

Thankfully with a squid pole, (usually reserved for a wind direction streamer) and some winch line Dave Pratley managed to rescue the plane undamaged.

Dave retrieving Marcus's glider  see video here

Concratulations to:

Marcus Stent 1st

Bob Wilson 2nd

David Pratley 3rd

f5j_overallresults_rcga_rnd1_nov_2015_statefield.pdf     f5j_flightscores_rcga_rnd1_nov_2015_statefield.pdf

Regards and Happy Flying

Jim Houdalakis

Fishing for Planes

A relieved Marcus with Dave's Help.

Alans pulsar and Bobs Ava

Daves Explorers

Wren and his new Kappa f5j

Alan helping Marcus with his f5j logger, Jim with his red pulsar

           Dave,    Jim   and   Bob

VICTORIAN F5J STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS 2014-15

Perfect weather was the order of the day for the eight pilots contesting the first ever Victorian F5J State Championships. By agreement, the pilots decided that all scores would count and that re-launches would be allowed. As it turned out there was one re-flight group for the day (due to a mid-air collision on landing approach) and several pilots took advantage of the re-launch opportunity.

We ran eight rounds for the day with two groups per round so there was plenty of flying. The wind was generally light and variable in direction. Equally suitable for small and large gliders. Thermals were there but not very strong and sometimes quite elusive. All this is reflected in the scores where, apart from the last flight group of the competition, the winner's time was close to the 10 minutes while the other pilots fared much, much worse. The lowest winning time was by Bob Wilson, 5:00 from a start height of 96 metres.

The lead changed quite a bit in the final stages.

Read more...

4 hardy pilots lined up for an afternoon of electric thermal duration at Diggers Rest.

Conditions were challenging with temperatures reaching 35C, and the wind speed varying between 13 and 30 Km/hr, with gusts up to 44 km/hr. However, there were ample thermals to be caught.

There were some equipment problems in the heat, with Bob Wilson having problems with his Altimeter not resetting, leading to ongoing launch problems, and the Altimeter in Russell Wiltshire's 3.8m Stork fried after the 2nd round leading to a withdrawal.

However, well done to ?? who was the most consistent on the day with his new 4m Maxa Pro from Vladimir's models. I think this one is definitely a keeper.

To find out who won and to see the 'photos, click here .

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