Schedule for the Weekend 2025
24th March 2025
Hey Oily Handers, the new year is moving along and it’s time to start thinking Oily Hand. Notice that as usual it is the last weekend in August, not the weekend before as has been mentioned on some calendars and internet sites. As usual you can arrive round lunch time on Friday of the 29th to re-familiarise your self with the field, get some testing done, drink tea, eat rock cakes and talk shit. It is a good idea to get your accommodation booked as soon as you are able – you can download our guidance for Accommodation & Info here Cowra Oily Hand Day Accommodation
We no longer are doing model of the meet. Instead we have picked a theme which broadens the scope for models which can be built, meaning more exciting and varied models at Oily Hand. The themed model of the meet for 2025 is biplane. All you need to do is build a biplane , any biplane (or you might already have one in the hangar), it can be F/F, R/C or C/L – any design, any size and you can scale it up or down and change the design. The over-riding rule is that it must conform to the Oily Hand Day engine formula. You can download it here Oily Hand Engine Formula . On Saturday lunch time all the biplanes will be displayed on the central C/L circle just as we did for Model of the Meet and all participants and spectators will have a chance to check them out. They will be judged by an ‘expert panel’, but the judging criteria will not be known beforehand. Believe me it will not be for the prettiest model – Oh no! no! no! – the criteria will be drawn from the hat just before judging and the judges will be a random selection and not necessarily modellers.
25th July 2025
What’s this – no Oily Hand updates for four months. Ah well, Andy came up for rego and the saw bones wouldn’t pass him ’cause he had a wonky ball joint. As he is an old model it took a while to get the right parts. In the end they got him all back together and he is running fine now.
1st August 2025
After consultation and consideration remote dethermalisers will be allowed for the David Owen Memorial Free Flight Scramble.
These include the BMK timers from the UK and any other type of radio controlled timer you can find or cobble together. Here is a post about it https://cowramac.com/index.php/category/andys-blog/ There are reasons for this change – They have become standard practice in F/F across the world, they avoid a flyaway and the loss of a valued engine/model, they can make the event safer by allowing head zooming models to be halted in their errant ways, they are kinder to ageing Oily Hand Day legs, a number of requests were made to the CD and organisers that they be allowed, also some blokes had started using them anyway. The scramble rules have been updated https://cowramac.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/David-Owen-FF-Scramble-Rules.pdf
PAW Raffle.
One of our members has donated a new in box PAW 35 R/C donk for this year’s raffle – Thanks Clive. It had sat in the back of a cupboard in his modelling den for a few years. He decided it was never going to be used so maybe it should be put to a better purpose. Tickets are only available at the Oily Hand weekend. They will be $5 as usual and drawn at the presentation on Sunday. You do not have to be present at the drawing, we will post the engine to you.
Something a bit different for the Pilot’s Draw this year.
Our long time Oily Hand chum Peter Jackson aka: ‘Jacko’ came up with this one. It is an Aeroflyte Husky painted in a nice shade of ‘army’ and fitted with beautiful spats as per the plan. By the way the plan is on Outerzone if you have the hankering to build one https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=3229 . The model has never been flown but is just waiting for your name to be drawn from the hat at the presentation on the Sunday so you can give it a burl. Do not forget you must be at the presentation when the names are drawn or someone else will walk away with this majestic beast. Oh and by the way, it is fitted with a new DC merlin.
A sad byline is that Pete will not be at this year’s Oily Hand. He has to go to his granddaughter’s wedding or the family will never forgive him. Boohoo Jacko! Anyway I have promised we will run him his own special Oily Hand some other time.