27th July – Raffle
Once agin our good Oily Hand mate Peter Jackson has donated a brand new model for you to win in the raffle. Tickets are only available at the event and the winner will be drawn at the presentation after lunch on Sunday.
This year he has done a 32″ F/F Tomboy with an un-run, just popped from the blister pack Cox Pee Wee. The model has been test glided and trimmed, but it has not flown. That is up to you. It is built to Peter’s fastidious standard and ready to fly. Peter will be on hand to help you test fly on Sunday afternoon if you win.
27th July – SAMS Golden Boomerang Event
As promised, this is a link to the running and rules for the Golden Boomerang Event. Thanks to Michael Towell who will be running the event for us at Oily Hand on Saturday afternoon.
SAMS Golden Boomerang Event
21st July – Models of the Meet For 2024
As usual we let you know the models ahead of this years event so you can order your kit from Bill East at Aerotech w_east@optusnet.com.au . Bill is doing both the kits and they come with all the wood, including strip wood, along with the plans in a box. You supply the hardware of your choice.
We have never done a Vic Smeed model at Oily Hand before. So this year we have chosen one of the less known ones – The Majorette. This is a 45″ span model intended for single channel or F/F. Vic designed this one in 1990, and with years of other great models to his credit this is also a good flier. We have provided a thumbnail of the plan here and you can find a pikkie somewhere online. The full size plan can be downloaded from Outerzone.
Steve Thomas, who flies a lot of C/L stunt, tells me the Shark 402 by Pat Johnstone from 1999 is just a great flying every day profile stunt model. The 402 is the wing area in square inches. The Shark comes from the Lew McFarland Shark of the 1960’s. It takes a .19 to .25 cuin engine and Steve swears by the OS20FP fitted to his. Steve has provided a photo of his sitting on his workbench which he assures me he cleaned up before he took the photo.
Below is a link to the PDF of the plan for the Shark 402 – it will print off full size.
Shark402
6th April – Yep it’s time to start thinking Oily Hand.
OK – so I always reckoned I would quit running Oily Hand when I turned seventy and that happened a good while back in the pandemic. But, after seventeen years, it still looks like I am going to be running it for a while yet. Why would I bother to do that when it takes so much time and work and there are other things I would rather do. Well, basically because everybody looks forward to it and enjoys it so much. And that is enough gratification to keep me doing it. Over the years we have lost some of the true believers as the ravages of age take their toll. But there are many bright young faces that have popped up to replace them. It heartens me to see that there is a new breed who still appreciate the smell of burnt castor oil, kero and either up their schnozes.
To reduce my, and my fellow septuagenarian and octogenarian club members, workload we are going to streamline things.
First up, there will be no more oily rag as it is just to much effort. I hate to do this as I know lots of Oily Handers collect them. But, think, if you have collected them all it now means your set is complete. You can hang them in your den and admire them. And yes we know of one Oily Hander who had theirs made into a quilt!
Second, we will be cutting out prizes for the events unless someone out there wants to organise or donate them. We are not schlepping round chasing sponsorship, printing tee shirts and collecting bottles of wine anymore. But, there will still be a pilots draw and as usual the prize will be a nice new and desirable engine. This is down to Pete Jackson and myself as we see it as important that you be a pilot and get out on the field and fly.
Models of the Meet
This year we are commemorating Adrian Bryant with his Golden Boomerang from 1948 for F/F and Radio Assist. It is an odd name for a model aeroplane, but there you go. The original was painted yellow and kept getting lost as in ‘my boomerang won’t come back’. Maybe you should put return to home in yours.
We will be running a SAMS Burford event for this aircraft on Saturday afternoon. It is a good idea to read the following SAMS rules when building your Boomerang to make sure it meets the SAMS requirements for the event.
https://maaa.asn.au/images/pdfs/Australian-Rules-S5-Old-Timer-Rules-2022_Final.pdf
The plan is available from Outerzone https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=4613 But you can order the kit with plans from our old wood searing mate Bill East. w_east@optusnet.com.au Bill will let you know pricing and get yours out to you in a jiffy so you can while away some happy hours with the razor knife and icky sticky of your choice.
The C/L model is the Thunderstreak from Aeroflyte, a classic 54″ stunt model. Once again Bill East has a kit for this and the plan is on Outerzone. Bill’s kit includes some modifications as suggested by Reg Towell, who knows about these things, to improve the strength of the fuselage.
4th May – mufflers for Thunderstreak
It is OK to fit a muffler to the engine you put in Your Thunderstreak. But for the Thunderstreak only, no other control line model. After having talked to some of the Thunderstreak builders it was decided to allow a muffler so the model can be flown at noise sensitive sites. Adding and removing the muffler on this model would make changing the balance difficult and spoil the appearance of a nicely finished aeroplane – Andy
Download the 2023 OHDD Brochure by clicking the link below
Brochure ’23
Pilots Briefing – click the link to download
Briefing 2023
These notes outline the way the flying during the weekend is conducted in terms of safety, organisation and co-operation among pilots to ensure the weekend runs safely and smoothly. At registration you will need to sign that you have read and understand these notes before commencing your weekend’s flying.
Event Rules – click the links to download
Plank Racing Rules 2023
David Owen FF Scramble Rules
Golden Boomerang SAMS Gordon Burford Event. NB: this is not a live link
See the information regarding the Golden Boomerang above to find the SAMS rules. We will post more info here once the number of rounds and scoring system for Oily Hand have been finalised.