Tiger Rat (oz17011)

About this Plan

Tiger Rat. Control line racer model. Wingspan 24 in.

Quote: "Freebee. Oliver diesel powered CL racer. Tiger Rat, by Chris Coote.

Since its founding in 1947, South Bristol MAC has always had a strong control line following. Indeed, it has been recognised over the years as one of the countries leading CL clubs, contributing both organisers and European and National champions to the cause of CL. The main interest has always been team racing and combat, that continues to the present day, with a friendly rivalry between the Team-Race and Combat enthusiasts.

In recent years, the combat crew have provided models for club bouts with the team race rabble, and often combat pilots are co-opted to perform team race duties. It was realised that a lot of fun and satisfaction was to be had flying races over our normal club grass flying site, but that the current crop of team race classes was not really suited to this type of surface, with difficulties in smooth landings in particular.

Over the years we have flown Weasel, Mini Goodyear, and of course Vintage 'A' and 'B'. We then realised that virtually everyone had an Oliver Tiger engine of some sort, both in the Combat and Team Race camps. All Olivers, whether they be original or replicas, seem to run consistently and hot start well, which is more than can be said for lots of other engines we have used in racers. Thus the idea of easy to build and fly, un-restricted models, powered only by Olivers, was well-received by both sets of enthusiasts. Tiger Rat racing had been invented!

Design Origins: Initially the proposal was to use a one model design, and the 1970 'A' Rat design by Dave Clarkson was suggested. The first couple built flew well, but suffered from tack of good ground handling on our grass site, despite use of a single 2 in balloon wheel for the UC. I remembered a successful 'B' class rat-racer from the 1960's, which I scaled down to a very successful Mouse racer in 1969 (Meece Ill), and which flew very stably with a good glide for gentle landings.

This is the basis of the design presented here, and since it is half way between a rat and a mouse, it has been christened Mighty Mouse by the builder of the prototype, Richard Evans, one of our leading Combat flyers, who still enjoys a bit of racing on the side, especially when his model wins! In fact, this model won first time out, and repeated the performance on the second event..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

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