March 1st 2026
2026 is the 20th anniversary of Oily Hand Diesel Day. Back in 2006 a chap called Mike Leys was our club president. One evening at a club meeting he opined “why don’t we run an event for diesel engines”. Everyone looked at him a bit weird, but anyway we went ahead and did it. There were 13 participants at the inaugural OHDD. Since then the engine formula has changed slightly, but the requirement for both you and your model to become covered in castor oil slime is still there. Maybe that’s what makes Oily Hand so unique that it is still powering on after two decades.
So this year expect something a little different. I don’t know what yet, but when I do I will be letting you know.
March 8th 2026
Theme for the model of the meet is ‘Two or More Fins” That leaves it fairly wide open. It depends a lot on what you reckon a ‘fin’ is and what plans you can find in your stash or by trolling the internet. Just to get you going here is the, well known at Oily Hand, Apex introduced to us by Phil Poole at the very first Oily Hand. You can find the plan on Outerzone https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=1574 Some of you will already have one as it was the Model of the Meet for the 10 year anniversary in 2016. Apex was designed by OWF (that would be; Ocean Francis William) Fisher and intended as a PAA Loader model. You can have a happy dive down a rabbit burrow finding out all about PAA Load events.
Phil Pooles Apex at the first Oily Hand. Note that he actually had two there, I have posted a photo of the other one with Phil holding it on the Cowra Oily Hand Weekend Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=122206423382325742&set=pcb.3826187287515071
And this here is my Apex currently fitted with an MP Jet Classic .040 A nice flying model.
OK so the Apex is pretty conventional ‘two or more fins‘. The Rezeneebe pushes the envelope a little further. This model is a canard powered by a Cox TD.010 in ‘pusher’ mode. More on that later. The fins are on the main plane, but there are two of them! The model, designed by Jim Fullarton, appeared in the December 1966 edition of Aeromodeller. I have built a number of them over the years. The first one back in the early ’80s was powered by the Cox .020 Pee Wee because I couldn’t get hold of an .010. The Pee Wee was to much power and the model went into a series of looping gyrations till the fuel ran out when it transitioned to a rather nice glide. So, if an .020 is used, the model needs to be scaled up. Some of the kids at Canowindra High where I ran a modelling group used their Cox .049s, but made the model half as big again and had a lot of fun with it. The beauty of the reed valve Coxes is that they run backwards so a pusher prop isn’t needed. The model flys very nicely with the .010 with a pusher prop. I carved a reverse pitch 3″ x 1.25″ rather than bend up a bit of aluminium as shown in the plans. If you do build the Rezeneebe remember it is sensitive to to much power so choose the engine carefully or build a bigger model. Also be sure to fit the turbulator thread on the fore plane. I used some upholsterers thread which is thicker than normal sewing thread. The other thing is to get the balance spot on by hanging from the CG shown using a pin and thread. Stick the pin in where the leading edge of Santa’s beard intersects the fuselage outline.
Two fins with a difference. Rezeneebe 18″ pusher canard by Australian designer Jim Fullarton.
The TD .010 with pusher prop.