Page 36 - MFW June 2025

GPS TRIANGLE RACING NATIONALS

Dave & Kev
Dave & Kev
Dave & Kev

Kevin Botherway, Rob Johnson and Dave Griffin
headed over to Perth recently to compete in the
Australian GPS Triangle Racing Nationals.

The event is in its 3rd year having been flown previously in
WA and South Australia. The flying site was atop gently
rolling hills near Toodyay - about an hour Northeast of
Perth. The field had been prepared with a huge effort by
the locals and great shaded area as the pits with a good
working layout for all competitors. The locals Steve
Maitland and Simon Watts had gone to a huge amount of
preorganization including levelling the landing site. The
flight area had a large aerial mast in our view, this was
protected by a little danger area which proved to be
unnoticeable although very intimidating before flying for a
first time. But not as bad as one of the trees as one
unfortunate pilot found out about!

Once our entries were logged, we were also entered into
a chat group and a few Australians arrived from all over
the country including one from Melbourne who drove over
to WA, his route included a 146km along a straight road.
The size of Australia is a constant amazement to us Kiwis.
It was great to meet up with all guys with a very similar
interest.

We flew over on the Tuesday for ready for practice on
Wednesday with the competition scheduled for Sport
Class Thursday Friday and Light Class Saturday and
Sunday.
to a competition defined Triangle with 3 turn points 250m
As well as the three Kiwi pilots there were a further 10 away for Light class and 350m for Sport class. Also
Australians from across the nation with three of them presented are altitude, airspeed, lap times and task time
having competed at the world level in the past. remaining – 30 min for Sport and 20 min for Light class.
Maximum altitudes and illegal motor running are also
Sports class features models of 5m wingspan up to a monitored. At the completion of the flight the data is
maximum weight of 7 kg. Light class, 4 metres and up to uploaded securely to rcmodelspot.com for scoring.
about 3kg depending on the wing area. Typically these
are F5J type models fully ballasted up to the maximum Models flown included our Nan models -the Compass in
weight to enable faster flying. the sports class and the Explorer Q5 in the light class with
Rob Johnson flying a Maxa. Most of the Australians flew
The GPS competitions use an onboard GPS and Altitude Samba such as the Philip Kolb designed Pike 2PK
sensor with data transmitted via a separate RF link to a
tablet mounted on a tripod close the pilots line of sight. Conditions were quite variable with high winds and a little
On the tablet the data is presented as a location in relation bit of rain, this lead to some lost time and changing of the
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