Model Airplane News Cover for April, 1967
The Oily Birds Click to Enlarge

About the Port Arthur Radio Control Club

In 1962 a model airplane club was organized as the "Port Arthur Radio Control Club", with the nickname of "The Oily Birds". This was in recognition of the Port Arthur (home of many refieries) city motto "The City That Oils The World". In a few years the club received its AMA Charter. Regular club meetings were held at the Groves State Bank building. The club built a concrete circle about 65 feet in diameter as their flying field. Some of the members at the time were active contest competitors. CAL SCULLY and MAL TROSCLAIR were competing in what was then called Class III, which allowed any number of control functions. BOB MOORE and BUDDY BRAMMER became THE forces to beat in Class I, which allowed only rudder and throttle control. They designed a model specifically for this class, called the "Oily Bird" which won just about all the Class I contests in a tri-state area at the time. It became so famous that Model Airplane News heard about it and presented it as a feature construction article in their April 1967 issue, with BUDDY and BOB on the cover. During this period, Cal Scully also hada construction article published in R/C Modeler magazine about his contest winning "Mr. Ed" model.

About the Model

neither of the two authors were model designers -- they were flyers who wanted an airplane that had satisfactory handling characteristics, particularly in landing. Most of the commercial models had high wings that offered some challenges in control response and landing. They had some success with a commercial mid-wing design, but it had a tendency to crash and break the nose off. Beginning with this plane, they evolved a series of models that gave them the performance they needed. The model described is Oily Bird #6 and their patience was rewarded -- the plane won a whole lot of contests.

You can read about the plane by clicking on the photos below to enlarge them

     

The Oily Bird #6
Click to Enlarge

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