September 2006 57
Dick “Fast Richard” Mathis has returned to FF after a 30-year
hiatus to produce a new version of his famous Bounty Hunter
design for the NFFS’s 2007 One Design event. Larry Kruse photo.
BountyHunter
by Richard Mathis
Set records with this “Fast
Richard” design of the
infamous record holder
SNIDER SWAMP, Louisiana—June 2, 2006: Once upon a time in
Snider Swamp I wrote many FF articles. Yes, I was paid a few dollars,
but the real reason for doing them was that I loved FF and thought
plenty of FFers would build my designs and win contests with them.
Ultimately I hoped to receive the kind of acclaim reserved for FF
royalty such as the great Sal Taibi and the late Carl Goldberg.
Today, instead of acclaim there is suspicion and misinformation.
There is even doubt about whether there ever was a Snider Swamp or a
Fast Richard (that’s me)! How sad.
During the three decades I have been retired from modeling, I have
often reflected on the possible reasons I failed. As a result, I have
figured out that the blame rests totally on my cynical and grouchy
readers, who always seemed to be lacking in the skills needed to make
my designs really go like they are supposed to.
Would you believe that I am still receiving hostile mail more than
three decades after my last article? It can be very discouraging.
As proof, check out the following letter from Midwestern reader
Nimley Frip about his recent experiences with my signature design: the
original 1961 Bounty Hunter. The whole thing is typical of the insane
correspondence I get.
“Who do you think you’re kidding? I just found out that everyone
up here in Ohio (except me) already knew Snider Swamp is not real! I
am totally embarrassed because I was always a fan of yours and
believed everything you wrote. I even built one of your designs in
1967, the Bounty Hunter.
“Last Sunday when I took it out to my first contest in 37 years,
everyone laughed at it and said it has been discovered that you never
built any of your own designs, you just made up all the great contest
records, and all of your designs automatically crash into open car
trunks—especially any Hudsons—and disintegrate.
“To make matters even worse, I was not allowed to compete with it
because once the sun came out and the tissue tightened up, the
“birdcage” wing and tail parts suddenly warped up like a potato chip
and collapsed. The CD disqualified it for being a hazard. You should
be ashamed.
“P.S. They also told me there really is no such person as Fast
Richard. What sort of bogus explanation do you have for that?”
Isn’t that sad? Reader Frip’s experience shows how ridiculous
myths can ruin a designer’s credibility. Not any Snider Swamp? Not
any Fast Richard? Absurd!
Furthermore, Nimley, if you can’t handle a warp or two and
little setbacks such as disqualifications, you should not be flying
my designs. Finally, although I admit that one sees very few
Hudson automobiles at FF contests today, my designs should not
be totally blamed.
The 2007 One Design Honor: Another angry FFer—Elrod
Freep—E-mailed me about a subject that obviously needs to be
clarified here. It was addressed to “Fast Richard (or whoever you
really are).”
“There is talk going around here in Southern California that
your Bounty Hunter will be designated the National Free Flight
Society [NFFS] One Design for 2007! Have they lost their minds?
The Bounty Hunter 1/2A was ridiculously huge—bigger than
some of today’s C-Class models—and it won’t go higher than 20
feet on today’s short motor runs. The whole event will be ruined.
“It is bad enough that you have come out of retirement and will
probably be writing more crazy articles, but this One Design thing
is the last straw! They should not be encouraging you! The NFFS
will be hearing from me about this travesty.
“P.S. You must have lobbied everyone—you should be
ashamed.”
Freep is only partly right. I am proud to report that the Bounty
Hunter will be the 2007 NFFS One Design subject—but in a
smaller (245-square-inch) version, which should make it
competitive in classic Gas competition as well.
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:00 AM Page 57Four development 245s have been built to sort out any bugs.
Thanks to Gene Smith, Bob Stalick, Dave Parsons, and Larry Kruse
for building and flying Bounty Hunter 245s,
reporting results, and offering suggestions for
improvements.
To sum up their findings, it builds (and
rebuilds!) surprisingly easily, comes out at a
light finished weight, climbs surprisingly fast,
has a great glide, and has a true Snider Swamp
“personality.”
58 MODEL AVIATION
MA “Free Flight Sport” columnist Gene Smith built this version. The wing and stabilizer
structure are stiff, so iron-on plastic coverings can be used. One of the secrets of the
strength is the small spar between the main spar and the TE. Smith photo.
“Fast Richard” devised the distinct
“birdcage” structure while he was still a
teen-ager. It became the hallmark of many
Mathis designs. Smith photo.
Left: The new 245-square-inch Bounty
Hunter retains the original’s classic lines
and construction features. This prototype
rendition by Larry Kruse uses a canted
engine mount to preserve the fuselage
profile. Kruse photo.
Below: Designer Dick Mathis (R) discusses
some of the design features with Larry
Kruse—one of the builders of the several
prototypes. The new design is considerably
smaller than the original 416-square-inch
version, to accommodate today’s shorter
engine runs and smaller fields.
The original 416-square-inch 1/2A version would have been fun for
serious fans of slow glides, but the 245 version presented here will be a
better all-around performer under modern rules. Tinkering with size is
in keeping with Bounty Hunter tradition because they have always
been scaled up and down to suit rules changes and available power.
Rest assured the One Design Bounty Hunter is genuine Snider
Swamp. I drew it up from a scaled-down Model Aircraft Labs Bounty
Hunter 416 kit plan, making changes and typical Fast Richard drawing
mistakes as needed to keep it as close to the more angular long-lost
original prototype as memory permits.
Photos as noted
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:25 AM Page 58September 2006 59
The bare-bones stabilizer shows the same
“birdcage” structure as the wing. The
crisscrossed diagonals provide an
excellent strength-to-weight ratio and a
warp-resistant structure. Smith photo.
The 2-56 flat-head stabilizer-adjustment screw is mounted in a short length of yellow
Nyrod tubing. A small piece of hardwood threaded for the screw and hardened with
thin cyanoacrylate could also be used. Smith photo.
The 1/8 square doublers at the rear of the pylon, extending fore and
aft, will provide needed strength in this high-stress area. DTed
landings are sometimes rough and tumble and require judiciously
beefing up the structure in key locations. Smith photo.
The fuselage is minimal in terms of weight and cross-section and
can be strengthened by adding 1/8 square doublers under the
stabilizer mount area before adding the left-side fuselage
sheeting. Smith photo.
California modeler Dave Parsons also built a prototype “Bounty
Hunter 245.” Here he tunes his Tee Dee engine before a test
flight. The NFFS One Design event will permit Tee Dee .049s or
.051s. Parsons photo.
BountyHunter
Type: 1/2A FF gas-powered model
Wingspan: 40 inches
Flying weight: 5.5-6.5 ounces
Construction: Balsa
Covering/finish: Iron-on covering or dope and tissue
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 5960 MODEL AVIATION
See page 191 for Full-Size Plans listing
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 60interesting to me to read about how
distinctive FF designs come about. It is true
that most designs are evolutionary rather
than revolutionary.
I recognize that my designs owe a lot to
the true pioneers. However, the following
letter from Reginald Foom in England about
where the Bounty Hunter design came from
was particularly irritating.
“I am writing a book about the evolution
of FF Gas design. I have several questions I
hope you can give a serious answer for.
Please do not try to be funny, as my book is a
scholarly work.
“My questions are: 1) What British model
did you copy the Bounty Hunter design
from? 2) Since no one here in Britain can
figure out where you stole the idea for the
crisscross ‘birdcage’ wing construction, do
you claim it was original with you? If you do
claim originality, you should be ashamed.”
Well, Foom, when I was a kid growing
up in the postwar, pre-RC “golden age” of
aeromodeling, things were different. Major
automotive companies and airlines and
military services were spending sponsorship
money on FF and CL competitions.
My dad and seemingly every man in the
neighborhood built model airplanes, plus we
lived roughly three blocks from the end of
the main runway of Love Field in Dallas,
Texas. Everywhere I looked I saw airplanes.
Worn-out Austin pneumatic FF timers
and deceased Ohlsson .23 sideports served as
Fast Richard the Toddler’s main toys. My
late dad Don flew FF and CL but was more
accomplished at the latter, so he taught me to
fly CL when I was 6 and put less emphasis
on the FF part.
Nevertheless, I was always more
interested in FF gliders and wind-up Jim
Walker Hornets because I could assemble,
modify, and fly them by myself all day every
day. Much of my early FF was self-taught
and unguided until I discovered Zaic Year
Books, British magazines, and joined the
Dallas Cloud Climbers FF club at
approximately age 14.
The Bounty Hunter started coming
together six years later, between 1960 and
1961, when I was 19, but it had many
influences behind it. As a teen-age Fast
Richard in the period leading up to 1961 I
had met Chicago’s Russ Hansen and seen his
high-thrust T-Birds go.
I had watched Bob Latham dominate
contests in the Dallas-Forth Worth area with
high-thrust, swept-wingtip designs, and I
noted that many European A-2 Gliders had
flat center-panel wings with tip dihedral. I
had also met and received guidance from
Larry Conover, whose angular designs
always inspired me.
Finally, I had flown a great deal of Indoor
Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), in which
Curt Stevens’ sharp high-point airfoils were
extraordinarily popular. I also figured out
that warren truss wing ribs were less warp
prone than traditional 90˚ layouts. Somehow
I translated Steven’s airfoil idea and warren
truss into the “birdcage” construction
62 MODEL AVIATION
technique—an original idea.
Pre-Bounty Hunter I had successfully
used the “birdcage” wing and tail
construction on an FAI Power model and the
colossal Cage 1/2A—a Thermal Hopperpowered
creation weighing roughly 8 ounces
with 600 square inches of wing attached to
an ultralong stick-and-tissue fuselage
punctuated with a tiny stabilizer and no
pylon (sort of like a modern F1C without
carbon).
The Cage had an I-Beam spar glued up
from 1/16 sheet, and the diamond airfoil’s
thickness worked out to 4%-5%. It had
crisscross stick ribs and was a fast climber,
considering it was approximately three times
bigger than a normal 1/2A. The glide was
stunning.
The Cage lasted long enough for me to
present it to a flabbergasted meeting of the
Cloud Climbers, but it proved to be sensitive
to careless launches, exploding full-bore in a
puff of red tissue and 1/16 square sticks after
narrowly missing my car: a battered black
1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Coupe.
The next 1/2A following the Ghia’s
escape from the Cage was the original
Bounty Hunter. For a short time, including
during its first contest victory, it was low
thrust.
I did not like the shallow climb angle it
had in low-thrust configuration, so I
rewarped the wings over the kitchen stove,
popped the firewall and nacelle cheeks off,
and made it high thrust. After that it climbed
vertically, as I wanted.
Thus a design signature emerged for me:
high-thrust; swept tips, pylon, and inverted
fin; flat center panel; angular lines;
“birdcage” structure; and HLG airfoil. I
recall there being only minor refinements to
the design leading up to its being kitted by
Model Aircraft Labs in the early 1960s and
published in American Modeler magazine,
although there were changes in the way we
set up and trimmed it.
Several prominent designers and fliers
including Bill Chenault, Jim Clem, and Jerry
Murphy helped improve the design at the
time of kitting by building and testing
Bounty Hunters and providing feedback. It
seems weird now to think of Jim
(Witchdoctor) or Bill (Mini Pearl) everflying Bounty Hunters, but it happened.
Although we were rivals at contests, we
were proud to promote worthy designs from
the Southwest.
My own Bounty Hunter eventually went
away OOS [out of sight] in an Oklahoma
boomer. However, many others were built
across the country, including various sizes
ranging from 200 to 1,000 square inches.
I made and distributed some rough
drawings for the 1,000-square-inch version.
In the hands of Jack Nix and others it
became my favorite Bounty Hunter size,
although I never had one of my own. The
Bounty Hunter is a friendly but highperforming
design in any size.
Construction: In the scaling-down process I
shortened the nose from the original
drawings, but the four 245 prototypes still
came out nose-heavy.
You should wait to attach the motor
nacelles and complete the front of the
fuselage until the rest of the airplane is
finished. Then slide the power pod to the
right place to obtain the CG location
specified and glue it all up. It may mean you
have to inset the pod in the pylon. With heatshrink
covering the completed airplane
should weigh 5.5-6.5 ounces.
I hate bent fuselages, so I build straight
ones by pinning one sheet side to a flat board
and gluing in the first layer of 1/8 square
stringers and uprights. Then the pylon and
fin go in, and the gaps between them receive
the middle 1/8 square pieces. I glue the 1/8-
inch stringers and uprights to the other side,
remove the pins that were holding down the
first side, and glue on the second side with
books piled on top to hold everything flat.
Be extra careful to sink the front wing
rubber-band hold-down hook low enough
and even with, or slightly behind, the LE to
secure the wing tight to the platform. Key
the wing and rig the pop-up DT to at least
50˚. Make sure your wing has at least some
“net” washin on the left main panel
(meaning all the warps combined should
equal that much washin).
Trimming: Some readers, such as Seymour
Throop, simply do not follow Fast Richard’s
recommendations—and they pay the price.
“I have built several of your FF Gas
designs from magazine publications, and
every one has been impossible to trim. I
follow all your instructions except I do not
believe in warping wings on purpose and I
move all of the CGs ahead an extra inch just
to be safe.
“They never crash, but all they do is
loops and barrel rolls. Some guys in my club
say they saw you fly in the 1960s and your
mother had to trim all of your stuff for
you—but they say she was really good at it.
You should be ashamed for not giving her
credit.”
Okay, Seymour, I confess. My late
mother Judy always adjusted my models and
taught me Mama’s Four Truths of
Trimming, which would help you remember.
First, kitchen stoves are for warping your
model airplanes. Second, put the CG where
the designer has it. Third, most designs fly
best when they are crooked, or
crossadjusted—like wing warps
counteracted by rudder tab. Fourth, to climb
straight up you need more down—as in take
the up out of your stabilizer to go more up.
If it were my new 245, my mama were
observing, I had the CG in the right place
and had matched all the angles on the plans,
and I was positive about the straight fuselage
and fin, I would go out in calm weather and
do numerous hand glides. There should be a
teeny bit of left rudder tab (1/32 inch) to start
with, and I would add stabilizer tilt until it
obviously had a slight left-circle tendency.
I would want a long floating glide with
the wings flat—not banked. I might have to
glide it 20-30 times to be sure. I would even
purposely bank it slightly left and toss it into
a mild stall to see if it recovered smoothly.
I would be shimming the stabilizer to get
the glide just right—no changes to the CG.
Once it looked good, I would send it off for
three to four seconds at full power. After that
(assuming I could find all the pieces) I
would correct the stabilizer shims and rudder
tab to adjust the climb, and open or tighten
the stabilizer tilt to smooth the glide.
Bounty Hunters with the proper amount
of crookedness (washin on the left side of
the wing) should crash only when they go
to the right in the climb, so you should use
only enough left rudder tab to keep that
from happening.
If your Bounty Hunter wants to crash to
the left, take out rudder tab. Then if it still
wants to crash left, something is wrong, so
wash in the left wing more. As a last resort
you could also shim the TE of the stabilizer
up a bit.
If your Bounty Hunter is loopy, it will
eventually end up climbing in a hot thermal,
go to the right, and crash, so take the loop
out with down-stabilizer. Make it glide to
the left with stabilizer or wing tilt, which
affects only glide. A hot (and safe) Bounty
Hunter 245 might make a quarter of a left
turn on a full engine run and go nearly
vertical.
Because it is obvious that some FF types
will never heed Fast Richard’s instructions,
maybe they will at least listen to his mama.
Competing With the Bounty Hunter:
Admittedly, Fast Richard is a bit rusty from
not flying for several decades, and there
may occasionally be a slipup in the heat of
competition. When that happens we should
just move on. It does not help any when socalled
fans constantly remind us of it, as in
the following snide E-mail message I
received today from Vince Thrid.
“We are all glad you are back, especially
because your flights give us something
entertaining to talk about between contests.
I hear your F1C FF performed several parts
of the CL Stunt pattern (including a highspeed
inverted pass over the flightline) last
week at the Texas Cloud Climbers meet
before it stuck in the ground like a spear. At
least you did not injure anyone—and you
have not been disqualified yet.
“Keep up the good work.”
About all there is to say to Vince is,
Wait until next year when I arrive in my
vintage Hudson Terraplane with my
Bounty Hunter 245 going good for the
one-design competitions. You will notice
that it is adjusted perfectly, just as my
mama would do it. May we all (with the
exception of Elrod Freep) max out in 2007
with our 245s. MA
Richard Mathis
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/09
Page Numbers: 57,58,59,60,62,64
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/09
Page Numbers: 57,58,59,60,62,64
September 2006 57
Dick “Fast Richard” Mathis has returned to FF after a 30-year
hiatus to produce a new version of his famous Bounty Hunter
design for the NFFS’s 2007 One Design event. Larry Kruse photo.
BountyHunter
by Richard Mathis
Set records with this “Fast
Richard” design of the
infamous record holder
SNIDER SWAMP, Louisiana—June 2, 2006: Once upon a time in
Snider Swamp I wrote many FF articles. Yes, I was paid a few dollars,
but the real reason for doing them was that I loved FF and thought
plenty of FFers would build my designs and win contests with them.
Ultimately I hoped to receive the kind of acclaim reserved for FF
royalty such as the great Sal Taibi and the late Carl Goldberg.
Today, instead of acclaim there is suspicion and misinformation.
There is even doubt about whether there ever was a Snider Swamp or a
Fast Richard (that’s me)! How sad.
During the three decades I have been retired from modeling, I have
often reflected on the possible reasons I failed. As a result, I have
figured out that the blame rests totally on my cynical and grouchy
readers, who always seemed to be lacking in the skills needed to make
my designs really go like they are supposed to.
Would you believe that I am still receiving hostile mail more than
three decades after my last article? It can be very discouraging.
As proof, check out the following letter from Midwestern reader
Nimley Frip about his recent experiences with my signature design: the
original 1961 Bounty Hunter. The whole thing is typical of the insane
correspondence I get.
“Who do you think you’re kidding? I just found out that everyone
up here in Ohio (except me) already knew Snider Swamp is not real! I
am totally embarrassed because I was always a fan of yours and
believed everything you wrote. I even built one of your designs in
1967, the Bounty Hunter.
“Last Sunday when I took it out to my first contest in 37 years,
everyone laughed at it and said it has been discovered that you never
built any of your own designs, you just made up all the great contest
records, and all of your designs automatically crash into open car
trunks—especially any Hudsons—and disintegrate.
“To make matters even worse, I was not allowed to compete with it
because once the sun came out and the tissue tightened up, the
“birdcage” wing and tail parts suddenly warped up like a potato chip
and collapsed. The CD disqualified it for being a hazard. You should
be ashamed.
“P.S. They also told me there really is no such person as Fast
Richard. What sort of bogus explanation do you have for that?”
Isn’t that sad? Reader Frip’s experience shows how ridiculous
myths can ruin a designer’s credibility. Not any Snider Swamp? Not
any Fast Richard? Absurd!
Furthermore, Nimley, if you can’t handle a warp or two and
little setbacks such as disqualifications, you should not be flying
my designs. Finally, although I admit that one sees very few
Hudson automobiles at FF contests today, my designs should not
be totally blamed.
The 2007 One Design Honor: Another angry FFer—Elrod
Freep—E-mailed me about a subject that obviously needs to be
clarified here. It was addressed to “Fast Richard (or whoever you
really are).”
“There is talk going around here in Southern California that
your Bounty Hunter will be designated the National Free Flight
Society [NFFS] One Design for 2007! Have they lost their minds?
The Bounty Hunter 1/2A was ridiculously huge—bigger than
some of today’s C-Class models—and it won’t go higher than 20
feet on today’s short motor runs. The whole event will be ruined.
“It is bad enough that you have come out of retirement and will
probably be writing more crazy articles, but this One Design thing
is the last straw! They should not be encouraging you! The NFFS
will be hearing from me about this travesty.
“P.S. You must have lobbied everyone—you should be
ashamed.”
Freep is only partly right. I am proud to report that the Bounty
Hunter will be the 2007 NFFS One Design subject—but in a
smaller (245-square-inch) version, which should make it
competitive in classic Gas competition as well.
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:00 AM Page 57Four development 245s have been built to sort out any bugs.
Thanks to Gene Smith, Bob Stalick, Dave Parsons, and Larry Kruse
for building and flying Bounty Hunter 245s,
reporting results, and offering suggestions for
improvements.
To sum up their findings, it builds (and
rebuilds!) surprisingly easily, comes out at a
light finished weight, climbs surprisingly fast,
has a great glide, and has a true Snider Swamp
“personality.”
58 MODEL AVIATION
MA “Free Flight Sport” columnist Gene Smith built this version. The wing and stabilizer
structure are stiff, so iron-on plastic coverings can be used. One of the secrets of the
strength is the small spar between the main spar and the TE. Smith photo.
“Fast Richard” devised the distinct
“birdcage” structure while he was still a
teen-ager. It became the hallmark of many
Mathis designs. Smith photo.
Left: The new 245-square-inch Bounty
Hunter retains the original’s classic lines
and construction features. This prototype
rendition by Larry Kruse uses a canted
engine mount to preserve the fuselage
profile. Kruse photo.
Below: Designer Dick Mathis (R) discusses
some of the design features with Larry
Kruse—one of the builders of the several
prototypes. The new design is considerably
smaller than the original 416-square-inch
version, to accommodate today’s shorter
engine runs and smaller fields.
The original 416-square-inch 1/2A version would have been fun for
serious fans of slow glides, but the 245 version presented here will be a
better all-around performer under modern rules. Tinkering with size is
in keeping with Bounty Hunter tradition because they have always
been scaled up and down to suit rules changes and available power.
Rest assured the One Design Bounty Hunter is genuine Snider
Swamp. I drew it up from a scaled-down Model Aircraft Labs Bounty
Hunter 416 kit plan, making changes and typical Fast Richard drawing
mistakes as needed to keep it as close to the more angular long-lost
original prototype as memory permits.
Photos as noted
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:25 AM Page 58September 2006 59
The bare-bones stabilizer shows the same
“birdcage” structure as the wing. The
crisscrossed diagonals provide an
excellent strength-to-weight ratio and a
warp-resistant structure. Smith photo.
The 2-56 flat-head stabilizer-adjustment screw is mounted in a short length of yellow
Nyrod tubing. A small piece of hardwood threaded for the screw and hardened with
thin cyanoacrylate could also be used. Smith photo.
The 1/8 square doublers at the rear of the pylon, extending fore and
aft, will provide needed strength in this high-stress area. DTed
landings are sometimes rough and tumble and require judiciously
beefing up the structure in key locations. Smith photo.
The fuselage is minimal in terms of weight and cross-section and
can be strengthened by adding 1/8 square doublers under the
stabilizer mount area before adding the left-side fuselage
sheeting. Smith photo.
California modeler Dave Parsons also built a prototype “Bounty
Hunter 245.” Here he tunes his Tee Dee engine before a test
flight. The NFFS One Design event will permit Tee Dee .049s or
.051s. Parsons photo.
BountyHunter
Type: 1/2A FF gas-powered model
Wingspan: 40 inches
Flying weight: 5.5-6.5 ounces
Construction: Balsa
Covering/finish: Iron-on covering or dope and tissue
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 5960 MODEL AVIATION
See page 191 for Full-Size Plans listing
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 60interesting to me to read about how
distinctive FF designs come about. It is true
that most designs are evolutionary rather
than revolutionary.
I recognize that my designs owe a lot to
the true pioneers. However, the following
letter from Reginald Foom in England about
where the Bounty Hunter design came from
was particularly irritating.
“I am writing a book about the evolution
of FF Gas design. I have several questions I
hope you can give a serious answer for.
Please do not try to be funny, as my book is a
scholarly work.
“My questions are: 1) What British model
did you copy the Bounty Hunter design
from? 2) Since no one here in Britain can
figure out where you stole the idea for the
crisscross ‘birdcage’ wing construction, do
you claim it was original with you? If you do
claim originality, you should be ashamed.”
Well, Foom, when I was a kid growing
up in the postwar, pre-RC “golden age” of
aeromodeling, things were different. Major
automotive companies and airlines and
military services were spending sponsorship
money on FF and CL competitions.
My dad and seemingly every man in the
neighborhood built model airplanes, plus we
lived roughly three blocks from the end of
the main runway of Love Field in Dallas,
Texas. Everywhere I looked I saw airplanes.
Worn-out Austin pneumatic FF timers
and deceased Ohlsson .23 sideports served as
Fast Richard the Toddler’s main toys. My
late dad Don flew FF and CL but was more
accomplished at the latter, so he taught me to
fly CL when I was 6 and put less emphasis
on the FF part.
Nevertheless, I was always more
interested in FF gliders and wind-up Jim
Walker Hornets because I could assemble,
modify, and fly them by myself all day every
day. Much of my early FF was self-taught
and unguided until I discovered Zaic Year
Books, British magazines, and joined the
Dallas Cloud Climbers FF club at
approximately age 14.
The Bounty Hunter started coming
together six years later, between 1960 and
1961, when I was 19, but it had many
influences behind it. As a teen-age Fast
Richard in the period leading up to 1961 I
had met Chicago’s Russ Hansen and seen his
high-thrust T-Birds go.
I had watched Bob Latham dominate
contests in the Dallas-Forth Worth area with
high-thrust, swept-wingtip designs, and I
noted that many European A-2 Gliders had
flat center-panel wings with tip dihedral. I
had also met and received guidance from
Larry Conover, whose angular designs
always inspired me.
Finally, I had flown a great deal of Indoor
Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), in which
Curt Stevens’ sharp high-point airfoils were
extraordinarily popular. I also figured out
that warren truss wing ribs were less warp
prone than traditional 90˚ layouts. Somehow
I translated Steven’s airfoil idea and warren
truss into the “birdcage” construction
62 MODEL AVIATION
technique—an original idea.
Pre-Bounty Hunter I had successfully
used the “birdcage” wing and tail
construction on an FAI Power model and the
colossal Cage 1/2A—a Thermal Hopperpowered
creation weighing roughly 8 ounces
with 600 square inches of wing attached to
an ultralong stick-and-tissue fuselage
punctuated with a tiny stabilizer and no
pylon (sort of like a modern F1C without
carbon).
The Cage had an I-Beam spar glued up
from 1/16 sheet, and the diamond airfoil’s
thickness worked out to 4%-5%. It had
crisscross stick ribs and was a fast climber,
considering it was approximately three times
bigger than a normal 1/2A. The glide was
stunning.
The Cage lasted long enough for me to
present it to a flabbergasted meeting of the
Cloud Climbers, but it proved to be sensitive
to careless launches, exploding full-bore in a
puff of red tissue and 1/16 square sticks after
narrowly missing my car: a battered black
1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Coupe.
The next 1/2A following the Ghia’s
escape from the Cage was the original
Bounty Hunter. For a short time, including
during its first contest victory, it was low
thrust.
I did not like the shallow climb angle it
had in low-thrust configuration, so I
rewarped the wings over the kitchen stove,
popped the firewall and nacelle cheeks off,
and made it high thrust. After that it climbed
vertically, as I wanted.
Thus a design signature emerged for me:
high-thrust; swept tips, pylon, and inverted
fin; flat center panel; angular lines;
“birdcage” structure; and HLG airfoil. I
recall there being only minor refinements to
the design leading up to its being kitted by
Model Aircraft Labs in the early 1960s and
published in American Modeler magazine,
although there were changes in the way we
set up and trimmed it.
Several prominent designers and fliers
including Bill Chenault, Jim Clem, and Jerry
Murphy helped improve the design at the
time of kitting by building and testing
Bounty Hunters and providing feedback. It
seems weird now to think of Jim
(Witchdoctor) or Bill (Mini Pearl) everflying Bounty Hunters, but it happened.
Although we were rivals at contests, we
were proud to promote worthy designs from
the Southwest.
My own Bounty Hunter eventually went
away OOS [out of sight] in an Oklahoma
boomer. However, many others were built
across the country, including various sizes
ranging from 200 to 1,000 square inches.
I made and distributed some rough
drawings for the 1,000-square-inch version.
In the hands of Jack Nix and others it
became my favorite Bounty Hunter size,
although I never had one of my own. The
Bounty Hunter is a friendly but highperforming
design in any size.
Construction: In the scaling-down process I
shortened the nose from the original
drawings, but the four 245 prototypes still
came out nose-heavy.
You should wait to attach the motor
nacelles and complete the front of the
fuselage until the rest of the airplane is
finished. Then slide the power pod to the
right place to obtain the CG location
specified and glue it all up. It may mean you
have to inset the pod in the pylon. With heatshrink
covering the completed airplane
should weigh 5.5-6.5 ounces.
I hate bent fuselages, so I build straight
ones by pinning one sheet side to a flat board
and gluing in the first layer of 1/8 square
stringers and uprights. Then the pylon and
fin go in, and the gaps between them receive
the middle 1/8 square pieces. I glue the 1/8-
inch stringers and uprights to the other side,
remove the pins that were holding down the
first side, and glue on the second side with
books piled on top to hold everything flat.
Be extra careful to sink the front wing
rubber-band hold-down hook low enough
and even with, or slightly behind, the LE to
secure the wing tight to the platform. Key
the wing and rig the pop-up DT to at least
50˚. Make sure your wing has at least some
“net” washin on the left main panel
(meaning all the warps combined should
equal that much washin).
Trimming: Some readers, such as Seymour
Throop, simply do not follow Fast Richard’s
recommendations—and they pay the price.
“I have built several of your FF Gas
designs from magazine publications, and
every one has been impossible to trim. I
follow all your instructions except I do not
believe in warping wings on purpose and I
move all of the CGs ahead an extra inch just
to be safe.
“They never crash, but all they do is
loops and barrel rolls. Some guys in my club
say they saw you fly in the 1960s and your
mother had to trim all of your stuff for
you—but they say she was really good at it.
You should be ashamed for not giving her
credit.”
Okay, Seymour, I confess. My late
mother Judy always adjusted my models and
taught me Mama’s Four Truths of
Trimming, which would help you remember.
First, kitchen stoves are for warping your
model airplanes. Second, put the CG where
the designer has it. Third, most designs fly
best when they are crooked, or
crossadjusted—like wing warps
counteracted by rudder tab. Fourth, to climb
straight up you need more down—as in take
the up out of your stabilizer to go more up.
If it were my new 245, my mama were
observing, I had the CG in the right place
and had matched all the angles on the plans,
and I was positive about the straight fuselage
and fin, I would go out in calm weather and
do numerous hand glides. There should be a
teeny bit of left rudder tab (1/32 inch) to start
with, and I would add stabilizer tilt until it
obviously had a slight left-circle tendency.
I would want a long floating glide with
the wings flat—not banked. I might have to
glide it 20-30 times to be sure. I would even
purposely bank it slightly left and toss it into
a mild stall to see if it recovered smoothly.
I would be shimming the stabilizer to get
the glide just right—no changes to the CG.
Once it looked good, I would send it off for
three to four seconds at full power. After that
(assuming I could find all the pieces) I
would correct the stabilizer shims and rudder
tab to adjust the climb, and open or tighten
the stabilizer tilt to smooth the glide.
Bounty Hunters with the proper amount
of crookedness (washin on the left side of
the wing) should crash only when they go
to the right in the climb, so you should use
only enough left rudder tab to keep that
from happening.
If your Bounty Hunter wants to crash to
the left, take out rudder tab. Then if it still
wants to crash left, something is wrong, so
wash in the left wing more. As a last resort
you could also shim the TE of the stabilizer
up a bit.
If your Bounty Hunter is loopy, it will
eventually end up climbing in a hot thermal,
go to the right, and crash, so take the loop
out with down-stabilizer. Make it glide to
the left with stabilizer or wing tilt, which
affects only glide. A hot (and safe) Bounty
Hunter 245 might make a quarter of a left
turn on a full engine run and go nearly
vertical.
Because it is obvious that some FF types
will never heed Fast Richard’s instructions,
maybe they will at least listen to his mama.
Competing With the Bounty Hunter:
Admittedly, Fast Richard is a bit rusty from
not flying for several decades, and there
may occasionally be a slipup in the heat of
competition. When that happens we should
just move on. It does not help any when socalled
fans constantly remind us of it, as in
the following snide E-mail message I
received today from Vince Thrid.
“We are all glad you are back, especially
because your flights give us something
entertaining to talk about between contests.
I hear your F1C FF performed several parts
of the CL Stunt pattern (including a highspeed
inverted pass over the flightline) last
week at the Texas Cloud Climbers meet
before it stuck in the ground like a spear. At
least you did not injure anyone—and you
have not been disqualified yet.
“Keep up the good work.”
About all there is to say to Vince is,
Wait until next year when I arrive in my
vintage Hudson Terraplane with my
Bounty Hunter 245 going good for the
one-design competitions. You will notice
that it is adjusted perfectly, just as my
mama would do it. May we all (with the
exception of Elrod Freep) max out in 2007
with our 245s. MA
Richard Mathis
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/09
Page Numbers: 57,58,59,60,62,64
September 2006 57
Dick “Fast Richard” Mathis has returned to FF after a 30-year
hiatus to produce a new version of his famous Bounty Hunter
design for the NFFS’s 2007 One Design event. Larry Kruse photo.
BountyHunter
by Richard Mathis
Set records with this “Fast
Richard” design of the
infamous record holder
SNIDER SWAMP, Louisiana—June 2, 2006: Once upon a time in
Snider Swamp I wrote many FF articles. Yes, I was paid a few dollars,
but the real reason for doing them was that I loved FF and thought
plenty of FFers would build my designs and win contests with them.
Ultimately I hoped to receive the kind of acclaim reserved for FF
royalty such as the great Sal Taibi and the late Carl Goldberg.
Today, instead of acclaim there is suspicion and misinformation.
There is even doubt about whether there ever was a Snider Swamp or a
Fast Richard (that’s me)! How sad.
During the three decades I have been retired from modeling, I have
often reflected on the possible reasons I failed. As a result, I have
figured out that the blame rests totally on my cynical and grouchy
readers, who always seemed to be lacking in the skills needed to make
my designs really go like they are supposed to.
Would you believe that I am still receiving hostile mail more than
three decades after my last article? It can be very discouraging.
As proof, check out the following letter from Midwestern reader
Nimley Frip about his recent experiences with my signature design: the
original 1961 Bounty Hunter. The whole thing is typical of the insane
correspondence I get.
“Who do you think you’re kidding? I just found out that everyone
up here in Ohio (except me) already knew Snider Swamp is not real! I
am totally embarrassed because I was always a fan of yours and
believed everything you wrote. I even built one of your designs in
1967, the Bounty Hunter.
“Last Sunday when I took it out to my first contest in 37 years,
everyone laughed at it and said it has been discovered that you never
built any of your own designs, you just made up all the great contest
records, and all of your designs automatically crash into open car
trunks—especially any Hudsons—and disintegrate.
“To make matters even worse, I was not allowed to compete with it
because once the sun came out and the tissue tightened up, the
“birdcage” wing and tail parts suddenly warped up like a potato chip
and collapsed. The CD disqualified it for being a hazard. You should
be ashamed.
“P.S. They also told me there really is no such person as Fast
Richard. What sort of bogus explanation do you have for that?”
Isn’t that sad? Reader Frip’s experience shows how ridiculous
myths can ruin a designer’s credibility. Not any Snider Swamp? Not
any Fast Richard? Absurd!
Furthermore, Nimley, if you can’t handle a warp or two and
little setbacks such as disqualifications, you should not be flying
my designs. Finally, although I admit that one sees very few
Hudson automobiles at FF contests today, my designs should not
be totally blamed.
The 2007 One Design Honor: Another angry FFer—Elrod
Freep—E-mailed me about a subject that obviously needs to be
clarified here. It was addressed to “Fast Richard (or whoever you
really are).”
“There is talk going around here in Southern California that
your Bounty Hunter will be designated the National Free Flight
Society [NFFS] One Design for 2007! Have they lost their minds?
The Bounty Hunter 1/2A was ridiculously huge—bigger than
some of today’s C-Class models—and it won’t go higher than 20
feet on today’s short motor runs. The whole event will be ruined.
“It is bad enough that you have come out of retirement and will
probably be writing more crazy articles, but this One Design thing
is the last straw! They should not be encouraging you! The NFFS
will be hearing from me about this travesty.
“P.S. You must have lobbied everyone—you should be
ashamed.”
Freep is only partly right. I am proud to report that the Bounty
Hunter will be the 2007 NFFS One Design subject—but in a
smaller (245-square-inch) version, which should make it
competitive in classic Gas competition as well.
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:00 AM Page 57Four development 245s have been built to sort out any bugs.
Thanks to Gene Smith, Bob Stalick, Dave Parsons, and Larry Kruse
for building and flying Bounty Hunter 245s,
reporting results, and offering suggestions for
improvements.
To sum up their findings, it builds (and
rebuilds!) surprisingly easily, comes out at a
light finished weight, climbs surprisingly fast,
has a great glide, and has a true Snider Swamp
“personality.”
58 MODEL AVIATION
MA “Free Flight Sport” columnist Gene Smith built this version. The wing and stabilizer
structure are stiff, so iron-on plastic coverings can be used. One of the secrets of the
strength is the small spar between the main spar and the TE. Smith photo.
“Fast Richard” devised the distinct
“birdcage” structure while he was still a
teen-ager. It became the hallmark of many
Mathis designs. Smith photo.
Left: The new 245-square-inch Bounty
Hunter retains the original’s classic lines
and construction features. This prototype
rendition by Larry Kruse uses a canted
engine mount to preserve the fuselage
profile. Kruse photo.
Below: Designer Dick Mathis (R) discusses
some of the design features with Larry
Kruse—one of the builders of the several
prototypes. The new design is considerably
smaller than the original 416-square-inch
version, to accommodate today’s shorter
engine runs and smaller fields.
The original 416-square-inch 1/2A version would have been fun for
serious fans of slow glides, but the 245 version presented here will be a
better all-around performer under modern rules. Tinkering with size is
in keeping with Bounty Hunter tradition because they have always
been scaled up and down to suit rules changes and available power.
Rest assured the One Design Bounty Hunter is genuine Snider
Swamp. I drew it up from a scaled-down Model Aircraft Labs Bounty
Hunter 416 kit plan, making changes and typical Fast Richard drawing
mistakes as needed to keep it as close to the more angular long-lost
original prototype as memory permits.
Photos as noted
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:25 AM Page 58September 2006 59
The bare-bones stabilizer shows the same
“birdcage” structure as the wing. The
crisscrossed diagonals provide an
excellent strength-to-weight ratio and a
warp-resistant structure. Smith photo.
The 2-56 flat-head stabilizer-adjustment screw is mounted in a short length of yellow
Nyrod tubing. A small piece of hardwood threaded for the screw and hardened with
thin cyanoacrylate could also be used. Smith photo.
The 1/8 square doublers at the rear of the pylon, extending fore and
aft, will provide needed strength in this high-stress area. DTed
landings are sometimes rough and tumble and require judiciously
beefing up the structure in key locations. Smith photo.
The fuselage is minimal in terms of weight and cross-section and
can be strengthened by adding 1/8 square doublers under the
stabilizer mount area before adding the left-side fuselage
sheeting. Smith photo.
California modeler Dave Parsons also built a prototype “Bounty
Hunter 245.” Here he tunes his Tee Dee engine before a test
flight. The NFFS One Design event will permit Tee Dee .049s or
.051s. Parsons photo.
BountyHunter
Type: 1/2A FF gas-powered model
Wingspan: 40 inches
Flying weight: 5.5-6.5 ounces
Construction: Balsa
Covering/finish: Iron-on covering or dope and tissue
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 5960 MODEL AVIATION
See page 191 for Full-Size Plans listing
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 60interesting to me to read about how
distinctive FF designs come about. It is true
that most designs are evolutionary rather
than revolutionary.
I recognize that my designs owe a lot to
the true pioneers. However, the following
letter from Reginald Foom in England about
where the Bounty Hunter design came from
was particularly irritating.
“I am writing a book about the evolution
of FF Gas design. I have several questions I
hope you can give a serious answer for.
Please do not try to be funny, as my book is a
scholarly work.
“My questions are: 1) What British model
did you copy the Bounty Hunter design
from? 2) Since no one here in Britain can
figure out where you stole the idea for the
crisscross ‘birdcage’ wing construction, do
you claim it was original with you? If you do
claim originality, you should be ashamed.”
Well, Foom, when I was a kid growing
up in the postwar, pre-RC “golden age” of
aeromodeling, things were different. Major
automotive companies and airlines and
military services were spending sponsorship
money on FF and CL competitions.
My dad and seemingly every man in the
neighborhood built model airplanes, plus we
lived roughly three blocks from the end of
the main runway of Love Field in Dallas,
Texas. Everywhere I looked I saw airplanes.
Worn-out Austin pneumatic FF timers
and deceased Ohlsson .23 sideports served as
Fast Richard the Toddler’s main toys. My
late dad Don flew FF and CL but was more
accomplished at the latter, so he taught me to
fly CL when I was 6 and put less emphasis
on the FF part.
Nevertheless, I was always more
interested in FF gliders and wind-up Jim
Walker Hornets because I could assemble,
modify, and fly them by myself all day every
day. Much of my early FF was self-taught
and unguided until I discovered Zaic Year
Books, British magazines, and joined the
Dallas Cloud Climbers FF club at
approximately age 14.
The Bounty Hunter started coming
together six years later, between 1960 and
1961, when I was 19, but it had many
influences behind it. As a teen-age Fast
Richard in the period leading up to 1961 I
had met Chicago’s Russ Hansen and seen his
high-thrust T-Birds go.
I had watched Bob Latham dominate
contests in the Dallas-Forth Worth area with
high-thrust, swept-wingtip designs, and I
noted that many European A-2 Gliders had
flat center-panel wings with tip dihedral. I
had also met and received guidance from
Larry Conover, whose angular designs
always inspired me.
Finally, I had flown a great deal of Indoor
Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), in which
Curt Stevens’ sharp high-point airfoils were
extraordinarily popular. I also figured out
that warren truss wing ribs were less warp
prone than traditional 90˚ layouts. Somehow
I translated Steven’s airfoil idea and warren
truss into the “birdcage” construction
62 MODEL AVIATION
technique—an original idea.
Pre-Bounty Hunter I had successfully
used the “birdcage” wing and tail
construction on an FAI Power model and the
colossal Cage 1/2A—a Thermal Hopperpowered
creation weighing roughly 8 ounces
with 600 square inches of wing attached to
an ultralong stick-and-tissue fuselage
punctuated with a tiny stabilizer and no
pylon (sort of like a modern F1C without
carbon).
The Cage had an I-Beam spar glued up
from 1/16 sheet, and the diamond airfoil’s
thickness worked out to 4%-5%. It had
crisscross stick ribs and was a fast climber,
considering it was approximately three times
bigger than a normal 1/2A. The glide was
stunning.
The Cage lasted long enough for me to
present it to a flabbergasted meeting of the
Cloud Climbers, but it proved to be sensitive
to careless launches, exploding full-bore in a
puff of red tissue and 1/16 square sticks after
narrowly missing my car: a battered black
1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Coupe.
The next 1/2A following the Ghia’s
escape from the Cage was the original
Bounty Hunter. For a short time, including
during its first contest victory, it was low
thrust.
I did not like the shallow climb angle it
had in low-thrust configuration, so I
rewarped the wings over the kitchen stove,
popped the firewall and nacelle cheeks off,
and made it high thrust. After that it climbed
vertically, as I wanted.
Thus a design signature emerged for me:
high-thrust; swept tips, pylon, and inverted
fin; flat center panel; angular lines;
“birdcage” structure; and HLG airfoil. I
recall there being only minor refinements to
the design leading up to its being kitted by
Model Aircraft Labs in the early 1960s and
published in American Modeler magazine,
although there were changes in the way we
set up and trimmed it.
Several prominent designers and fliers
including Bill Chenault, Jim Clem, and Jerry
Murphy helped improve the design at the
time of kitting by building and testing
Bounty Hunters and providing feedback. It
seems weird now to think of Jim
(Witchdoctor) or Bill (Mini Pearl) everflying Bounty Hunters, but it happened.
Although we were rivals at contests, we
were proud to promote worthy designs from
the Southwest.
My own Bounty Hunter eventually went
away OOS [out of sight] in an Oklahoma
boomer. However, many others were built
across the country, including various sizes
ranging from 200 to 1,000 square inches.
I made and distributed some rough
drawings for the 1,000-square-inch version.
In the hands of Jack Nix and others it
became my favorite Bounty Hunter size,
although I never had one of my own. The
Bounty Hunter is a friendly but highperforming
design in any size.
Construction: In the scaling-down process I
shortened the nose from the original
drawings, but the four 245 prototypes still
came out nose-heavy.
You should wait to attach the motor
nacelles and complete the front of the
fuselage until the rest of the airplane is
finished. Then slide the power pod to the
right place to obtain the CG location
specified and glue it all up. It may mean you
have to inset the pod in the pylon. With heatshrink
covering the completed airplane
should weigh 5.5-6.5 ounces.
I hate bent fuselages, so I build straight
ones by pinning one sheet side to a flat board
and gluing in the first layer of 1/8 square
stringers and uprights. Then the pylon and
fin go in, and the gaps between them receive
the middle 1/8 square pieces. I glue the 1/8-
inch stringers and uprights to the other side,
remove the pins that were holding down the
first side, and glue on the second side with
books piled on top to hold everything flat.
Be extra careful to sink the front wing
rubber-band hold-down hook low enough
and even with, or slightly behind, the LE to
secure the wing tight to the platform. Key
the wing and rig the pop-up DT to at least
50˚. Make sure your wing has at least some
“net” washin on the left main panel
(meaning all the warps combined should
equal that much washin).
Trimming: Some readers, such as Seymour
Throop, simply do not follow Fast Richard’s
recommendations—and they pay the price.
“I have built several of your FF Gas
designs from magazine publications, and
every one has been impossible to trim. I
follow all your instructions except I do not
believe in warping wings on purpose and I
move all of the CGs ahead an extra inch just
to be safe.
“They never crash, but all they do is
loops and barrel rolls. Some guys in my club
say they saw you fly in the 1960s and your
mother had to trim all of your stuff for
you—but they say she was really good at it.
You should be ashamed for not giving her
credit.”
Okay, Seymour, I confess. My late
mother Judy always adjusted my models and
taught me Mama’s Four Truths of
Trimming, which would help you remember.
First, kitchen stoves are for warping your
model airplanes. Second, put the CG where
the designer has it. Third, most designs fly
best when they are crooked, or
crossadjusted—like wing warps
counteracted by rudder tab. Fourth, to climb
straight up you need more down—as in take
the up out of your stabilizer to go more up.
If it were my new 245, my mama were
observing, I had the CG in the right place
and had matched all the angles on the plans,
and I was positive about the straight fuselage
and fin, I would go out in calm weather and
do numerous hand glides. There should be a
teeny bit of left rudder tab (1/32 inch) to start
with, and I would add stabilizer tilt until it
obviously had a slight left-circle tendency.
I would want a long floating glide with
the wings flat—not banked. I might have to
glide it 20-30 times to be sure. I would even
purposely bank it slightly left and toss it into
a mild stall to see if it recovered smoothly.
I would be shimming the stabilizer to get
the glide just right—no changes to the CG.
Once it looked good, I would send it off for
three to four seconds at full power. After that
(assuming I could find all the pieces) I
would correct the stabilizer shims and rudder
tab to adjust the climb, and open or tighten
the stabilizer tilt to smooth the glide.
Bounty Hunters with the proper amount
of crookedness (washin on the left side of
the wing) should crash only when they go
to the right in the climb, so you should use
only enough left rudder tab to keep that
from happening.
If your Bounty Hunter wants to crash to
the left, take out rudder tab. Then if it still
wants to crash left, something is wrong, so
wash in the left wing more. As a last resort
you could also shim the TE of the stabilizer
up a bit.
If your Bounty Hunter is loopy, it will
eventually end up climbing in a hot thermal,
go to the right, and crash, so take the loop
out with down-stabilizer. Make it glide to
the left with stabilizer or wing tilt, which
affects only glide. A hot (and safe) Bounty
Hunter 245 might make a quarter of a left
turn on a full engine run and go nearly
vertical.
Because it is obvious that some FF types
will never heed Fast Richard’s instructions,
maybe they will at least listen to his mama.
Competing With the Bounty Hunter:
Admittedly, Fast Richard is a bit rusty from
not flying for several decades, and there
may occasionally be a slipup in the heat of
competition. When that happens we should
just move on. It does not help any when socalled
fans constantly remind us of it, as in
the following snide E-mail message I
received today from Vince Thrid.
“We are all glad you are back, especially
because your flights give us something
entertaining to talk about between contests.
I hear your F1C FF performed several parts
of the CL Stunt pattern (including a highspeed
inverted pass over the flightline) last
week at the Texas Cloud Climbers meet
before it stuck in the ground like a spear. At
least you did not injure anyone—and you
have not been disqualified yet.
“Keep up the good work.”
About all there is to say to Vince is,
Wait until next year when I arrive in my
vintage Hudson Terraplane with my
Bounty Hunter 245 going good for the
one-design competitions. You will notice
that it is adjusted perfectly, just as my
mama would do it. May we all (with the
exception of Elrod Freep) max out in 2007
with our 245s. MA
Richard Mathis
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/09
Page Numbers: 57,58,59,60,62,64
September 2006 57
Dick “Fast Richard” Mathis has returned to FF after a 30-year
hiatus to produce a new version of his famous Bounty Hunter
design for the NFFS’s 2007 One Design event. Larry Kruse photo.
BountyHunter
by Richard Mathis
Set records with this “Fast
Richard” design of the
infamous record holder
SNIDER SWAMP, Louisiana—June 2, 2006: Once upon a time in
Snider Swamp I wrote many FF articles. Yes, I was paid a few dollars,
but the real reason for doing them was that I loved FF and thought
plenty of FFers would build my designs and win contests with them.
Ultimately I hoped to receive the kind of acclaim reserved for FF
royalty such as the great Sal Taibi and the late Carl Goldberg.
Today, instead of acclaim there is suspicion and misinformation.
There is even doubt about whether there ever was a Snider Swamp or a
Fast Richard (that’s me)! How sad.
During the three decades I have been retired from modeling, I have
often reflected on the possible reasons I failed. As a result, I have
figured out that the blame rests totally on my cynical and grouchy
readers, who always seemed to be lacking in the skills needed to make
my designs really go like they are supposed to.
Would you believe that I am still receiving hostile mail more than
three decades after my last article? It can be very discouraging.
As proof, check out the following letter from Midwestern reader
Nimley Frip about his recent experiences with my signature design: the
original 1961 Bounty Hunter. The whole thing is typical of the insane
correspondence I get.
“Who do you think you’re kidding? I just found out that everyone
up here in Ohio (except me) already knew Snider Swamp is not real! I
am totally embarrassed because I was always a fan of yours and
believed everything you wrote. I even built one of your designs in
1967, the Bounty Hunter.
“Last Sunday when I took it out to my first contest in 37 years,
everyone laughed at it and said it has been discovered that you never
built any of your own designs, you just made up all the great contest
records, and all of your designs automatically crash into open car
trunks—especially any Hudsons—and disintegrate.
“To make matters even worse, I was not allowed to compete with it
because once the sun came out and the tissue tightened up, the
“birdcage” wing and tail parts suddenly warped up like a potato chip
and collapsed. The CD disqualified it for being a hazard. You should
be ashamed.
“P.S. They also told me there really is no such person as Fast
Richard. What sort of bogus explanation do you have for that?”
Isn’t that sad? Reader Frip’s experience shows how ridiculous
myths can ruin a designer’s credibility. Not any Snider Swamp? Not
any Fast Richard? Absurd!
Furthermore, Nimley, if you can’t handle a warp or two and
little setbacks such as disqualifications, you should not be flying
my designs. Finally, although I admit that one sees very few
Hudson automobiles at FF contests today, my designs should not
be totally blamed.
The 2007 One Design Honor: Another angry FFer—Elrod
Freep—E-mailed me about a subject that obviously needs to be
clarified here. It was addressed to “Fast Richard (or whoever you
really are).”
“There is talk going around here in Southern California that
your Bounty Hunter will be designated the National Free Flight
Society [NFFS] One Design for 2007! Have they lost their minds?
The Bounty Hunter 1/2A was ridiculously huge—bigger than
some of today’s C-Class models—and it won’t go higher than 20
feet on today’s short motor runs. The whole event will be ruined.
“It is bad enough that you have come out of retirement and will
probably be writing more crazy articles, but this One Design thing
is the last straw! They should not be encouraging you! The NFFS
will be hearing from me about this travesty.
“P.S. You must have lobbied everyone—you should be
ashamed.”
Freep is only partly right. I am proud to report that the Bounty
Hunter will be the 2007 NFFS One Design subject—but in a
smaller (245-square-inch) version, which should make it
competitive in classic Gas competition as well.
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:00 AM Page 57Four development 245s have been built to sort out any bugs.
Thanks to Gene Smith, Bob Stalick, Dave Parsons, and Larry Kruse
for building and flying Bounty Hunter 245s,
reporting results, and offering suggestions for
improvements.
To sum up their findings, it builds (and
rebuilds!) surprisingly easily, comes out at a
light finished weight, climbs surprisingly fast,
has a great glide, and has a true Snider Swamp
“personality.”
58 MODEL AVIATION
MA “Free Flight Sport” columnist Gene Smith built this version. The wing and stabilizer
structure are stiff, so iron-on plastic coverings can be used. One of the secrets of the
strength is the small spar between the main spar and the TE. Smith photo.
“Fast Richard” devised the distinct
“birdcage” structure while he was still a
teen-ager. It became the hallmark of many
Mathis designs. Smith photo.
Left: The new 245-square-inch Bounty
Hunter retains the original’s classic lines
and construction features. This prototype
rendition by Larry Kruse uses a canted
engine mount to preserve the fuselage
profile. Kruse photo.
Below: Designer Dick Mathis (R) discusses
some of the design features with Larry
Kruse—one of the builders of the several
prototypes. The new design is considerably
smaller than the original 416-square-inch
version, to accommodate today’s shorter
engine runs and smaller fields.
The original 416-square-inch 1/2A version would have been fun for
serious fans of slow glides, but the 245 version presented here will be a
better all-around performer under modern rules. Tinkering with size is
in keeping with Bounty Hunter tradition because they have always
been scaled up and down to suit rules changes and available power.
Rest assured the One Design Bounty Hunter is genuine Snider
Swamp. I drew it up from a scaled-down Model Aircraft Labs Bounty
Hunter 416 kit plan, making changes and typical Fast Richard drawing
mistakes as needed to keep it as close to the more angular long-lost
original prototype as memory permits.
Photos as noted
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:25 AM Page 58September 2006 59
The bare-bones stabilizer shows the same
“birdcage” structure as the wing. The
crisscrossed diagonals provide an
excellent strength-to-weight ratio and a
warp-resistant structure. Smith photo.
The 2-56 flat-head stabilizer-adjustment screw is mounted in a short length of yellow
Nyrod tubing. A small piece of hardwood threaded for the screw and hardened with
thin cyanoacrylate could also be used. Smith photo.
The 1/8 square doublers at the rear of the pylon, extending fore and
aft, will provide needed strength in this high-stress area. DTed
landings are sometimes rough and tumble and require judiciously
beefing up the structure in key locations. Smith photo.
The fuselage is minimal in terms of weight and cross-section and
can be strengthened by adding 1/8 square doublers under the
stabilizer mount area before adding the left-side fuselage
sheeting. Smith photo.
California modeler Dave Parsons also built a prototype “Bounty
Hunter 245.” Here he tunes his Tee Dee engine before a test
flight. The NFFS One Design event will permit Tee Dee .049s or
.051s. Parsons photo.
BountyHunter
Type: 1/2A FF gas-powered model
Wingspan: 40 inches
Flying weight: 5.5-6.5 ounces
Construction: Balsa
Covering/finish: Iron-on covering or dope and tissue
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 5960 MODEL AVIATION
See page 191 for Full-Size Plans listing
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 60interesting to me to read about how
distinctive FF designs come about. It is true
that most designs are evolutionary rather
than revolutionary.
I recognize that my designs owe a lot to
the true pioneers. However, the following
letter from Reginald Foom in England about
where the Bounty Hunter design came from
was particularly irritating.
“I am writing a book about the evolution
of FF Gas design. I have several questions I
hope you can give a serious answer for.
Please do not try to be funny, as my book is a
scholarly work.
“My questions are: 1) What British model
did you copy the Bounty Hunter design
from? 2) Since no one here in Britain can
figure out where you stole the idea for the
crisscross ‘birdcage’ wing construction, do
you claim it was original with you? If you do
claim originality, you should be ashamed.”
Well, Foom, when I was a kid growing
up in the postwar, pre-RC “golden age” of
aeromodeling, things were different. Major
automotive companies and airlines and
military services were spending sponsorship
money on FF and CL competitions.
My dad and seemingly every man in the
neighborhood built model airplanes, plus we
lived roughly three blocks from the end of
the main runway of Love Field in Dallas,
Texas. Everywhere I looked I saw airplanes.
Worn-out Austin pneumatic FF timers
and deceased Ohlsson .23 sideports served as
Fast Richard the Toddler’s main toys. My
late dad Don flew FF and CL but was more
accomplished at the latter, so he taught me to
fly CL when I was 6 and put less emphasis
on the FF part.
Nevertheless, I was always more
interested in FF gliders and wind-up Jim
Walker Hornets because I could assemble,
modify, and fly them by myself all day every
day. Much of my early FF was self-taught
and unguided until I discovered Zaic Year
Books, British magazines, and joined the
Dallas Cloud Climbers FF club at
approximately age 14.
The Bounty Hunter started coming
together six years later, between 1960 and
1961, when I was 19, but it had many
influences behind it. As a teen-age Fast
Richard in the period leading up to 1961 I
had met Chicago’s Russ Hansen and seen his
high-thrust T-Birds go.
I had watched Bob Latham dominate
contests in the Dallas-Forth Worth area with
high-thrust, swept-wingtip designs, and I
noted that many European A-2 Gliders had
flat center-panel wings with tip dihedral. I
had also met and received guidance from
Larry Conover, whose angular designs
always inspired me.
Finally, I had flown a great deal of Indoor
Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), in which
Curt Stevens’ sharp high-point airfoils were
extraordinarily popular. I also figured out
that warren truss wing ribs were less warp
prone than traditional 90˚ layouts. Somehow
I translated Steven’s airfoil idea and warren
truss into the “birdcage” construction
62 MODEL AVIATION
technique—an original idea.
Pre-Bounty Hunter I had successfully
used the “birdcage” wing and tail
construction on an FAI Power model and the
colossal Cage 1/2A—a Thermal Hopperpowered
creation weighing roughly 8 ounces
with 600 square inches of wing attached to
an ultralong stick-and-tissue fuselage
punctuated with a tiny stabilizer and no
pylon (sort of like a modern F1C without
carbon).
The Cage had an I-Beam spar glued up
from 1/16 sheet, and the diamond airfoil’s
thickness worked out to 4%-5%. It had
crisscross stick ribs and was a fast climber,
considering it was approximately three times
bigger than a normal 1/2A. The glide was
stunning.
The Cage lasted long enough for me to
present it to a flabbergasted meeting of the
Cloud Climbers, but it proved to be sensitive
to careless launches, exploding full-bore in a
puff of red tissue and 1/16 square sticks after
narrowly missing my car: a battered black
1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Coupe.
The next 1/2A following the Ghia’s
escape from the Cage was the original
Bounty Hunter. For a short time, including
during its first contest victory, it was low
thrust.
I did not like the shallow climb angle it
had in low-thrust configuration, so I
rewarped the wings over the kitchen stove,
popped the firewall and nacelle cheeks off,
and made it high thrust. After that it climbed
vertically, as I wanted.
Thus a design signature emerged for me:
high-thrust; swept tips, pylon, and inverted
fin; flat center panel; angular lines;
“birdcage” structure; and HLG airfoil. I
recall there being only minor refinements to
the design leading up to its being kitted by
Model Aircraft Labs in the early 1960s and
published in American Modeler magazine,
although there were changes in the way we
set up and trimmed it.
Several prominent designers and fliers
including Bill Chenault, Jim Clem, and Jerry
Murphy helped improve the design at the
time of kitting by building and testing
Bounty Hunters and providing feedback. It
seems weird now to think of Jim
(Witchdoctor) or Bill (Mini Pearl) everflying Bounty Hunters, but it happened.
Although we were rivals at contests, we
were proud to promote worthy designs from
the Southwest.
My own Bounty Hunter eventually went
away OOS [out of sight] in an Oklahoma
boomer. However, many others were built
across the country, including various sizes
ranging from 200 to 1,000 square inches.
I made and distributed some rough
drawings for the 1,000-square-inch version.
In the hands of Jack Nix and others it
became my favorite Bounty Hunter size,
although I never had one of my own. The
Bounty Hunter is a friendly but highperforming
design in any size.
Construction: In the scaling-down process I
shortened the nose from the original
drawings, but the four 245 prototypes still
came out nose-heavy.
You should wait to attach the motor
nacelles and complete the front of the
fuselage until the rest of the airplane is
finished. Then slide the power pod to the
right place to obtain the CG location
specified and glue it all up. It may mean you
have to inset the pod in the pylon. With heatshrink
covering the completed airplane
should weigh 5.5-6.5 ounces.
I hate bent fuselages, so I build straight
ones by pinning one sheet side to a flat board
and gluing in the first layer of 1/8 square
stringers and uprights. Then the pylon and
fin go in, and the gaps between them receive
the middle 1/8 square pieces. I glue the 1/8-
inch stringers and uprights to the other side,
remove the pins that were holding down the
first side, and glue on the second side with
books piled on top to hold everything flat.
Be extra careful to sink the front wing
rubber-band hold-down hook low enough
and even with, or slightly behind, the LE to
secure the wing tight to the platform. Key
the wing and rig the pop-up DT to at least
50˚. Make sure your wing has at least some
“net” washin on the left main panel
(meaning all the warps combined should
equal that much washin).
Trimming: Some readers, such as Seymour
Throop, simply do not follow Fast Richard’s
recommendations—and they pay the price.
“I have built several of your FF Gas
designs from magazine publications, and
every one has been impossible to trim. I
follow all your instructions except I do not
believe in warping wings on purpose and I
move all of the CGs ahead an extra inch just
to be safe.
“They never crash, but all they do is
loops and barrel rolls. Some guys in my club
say they saw you fly in the 1960s and your
mother had to trim all of your stuff for
you—but they say she was really good at it.
You should be ashamed for not giving her
credit.”
Okay, Seymour, I confess. My late
mother Judy always adjusted my models and
taught me Mama’s Four Truths of
Trimming, which would help you remember.
First, kitchen stoves are for warping your
model airplanes. Second, put the CG where
the designer has it. Third, most designs fly
best when they are crooked, or
crossadjusted—like wing warps
counteracted by rudder tab. Fourth, to climb
straight up you need more down—as in take
the up out of your stabilizer to go more up.
If it were my new 245, my mama were
observing, I had the CG in the right place
and had matched all the angles on the plans,
and I was positive about the straight fuselage
and fin, I would go out in calm weather and
do numerous hand glides. There should be a
teeny bit of left rudder tab (1/32 inch) to start
with, and I would add stabilizer tilt until it
obviously had a slight left-circle tendency.
I would want a long floating glide with
the wings flat—not banked. I might have to
glide it 20-30 times to be sure. I would even
purposely bank it slightly left and toss it into
a mild stall to see if it recovered smoothly.
I would be shimming the stabilizer to get
the glide just right—no changes to the CG.
Once it looked good, I would send it off for
three to four seconds at full power. After that
(assuming I could find all the pieces) I
would correct the stabilizer shims and rudder
tab to adjust the climb, and open or tighten
the stabilizer tilt to smooth the glide.
Bounty Hunters with the proper amount
of crookedness (washin on the left side of
the wing) should crash only when they go
to the right in the climb, so you should use
only enough left rudder tab to keep that
from happening.
If your Bounty Hunter wants to crash to
the left, take out rudder tab. Then if it still
wants to crash left, something is wrong, so
wash in the left wing more. As a last resort
you could also shim the TE of the stabilizer
up a bit.
If your Bounty Hunter is loopy, it will
eventually end up climbing in a hot thermal,
go to the right, and crash, so take the loop
out with down-stabilizer. Make it glide to
the left with stabilizer or wing tilt, which
affects only glide. A hot (and safe) Bounty
Hunter 245 might make a quarter of a left
turn on a full engine run and go nearly
vertical.
Because it is obvious that some FF types
will never heed Fast Richard’s instructions,
maybe they will at least listen to his mama.
Competing With the Bounty Hunter:
Admittedly, Fast Richard is a bit rusty from
not flying for several decades, and there
may occasionally be a slipup in the heat of
competition. When that happens we should
just move on. It does not help any when socalled
fans constantly remind us of it, as in
the following snide E-mail message I
received today from Vince Thrid.
“We are all glad you are back, especially
because your flights give us something
entertaining to talk about between contests.
I hear your F1C FF performed several parts
of the CL Stunt pattern (including a highspeed
inverted pass over the flightline) last
week at the Texas Cloud Climbers meet
before it stuck in the ground like a spear. At
least you did not injure anyone—and you
have not been disqualified yet.
“Keep up the good work.”
About all there is to say to Vince is,
Wait until next year when I arrive in my
vintage Hudson Terraplane with my
Bounty Hunter 245 going good for the
one-design competitions. You will notice
that it is adjusted perfectly, just as my
mama would do it. May we all (with the
exception of Elrod Freep) max out in 2007
with our 245s. MA
Richard Mathis
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/09
Page Numbers: 57,58,59,60,62,64
September 2006 57
Dick “Fast Richard” Mathis has returned to FF after a 30-year
hiatus to produce a new version of his famous Bounty Hunter
design for the NFFS’s 2007 One Design event. Larry Kruse photo.
BountyHunter
by Richard Mathis
Set records with this “Fast
Richard” design of the
infamous record holder
SNIDER SWAMP, Louisiana—June 2, 2006: Once upon a time in
Snider Swamp I wrote many FF articles. Yes, I was paid a few dollars,
but the real reason for doing them was that I loved FF and thought
plenty of FFers would build my designs and win contests with them.
Ultimately I hoped to receive the kind of acclaim reserved for FF
royalty such as the great Sal Taibi and the late Carl Goldberg.
Today, instead of acclaim there is suspicion and misinformation.
There is even doubt about whether there ever was a Snider Swamp or a
Fast Richard (that’s me)! How sad.
During the three decades I have been retired from modeling, I have
often reflected on the possible reasons I failed. As a result, I have
figured out that the blame rests totally on my cynical and grouchy
readers, who always seemed to be lacking in the skills needed to make
my designs really go like they are supposed to.
Would you believe that I am still receiving hostile mail more than
three decades after my last article? It can be very discouraging.
As proof, check out the following letter from Midwestern reader
Nimley Frip about his recent experiences with my signature design: the
original 1961 Bounty Hunter. The whole thing is typical of the insane
correspondence I get.
“Who do you think you’re kidding? I just found out that everyone
up here in Ohio (except me) already knew Snider Swamp is not real! I
am totally embarrassed because I was always a fan of yours and
believed everything you wrote. I even built one of your designs in
1967, the Bounty Hunter.
“Last Sunday when I took it out to my first contest in 37 years,
everyone laughed at it and said it has been discovered that you never
built any of your own designs, you just made up all the great contest
records, and all of your designs automatically crash into open car
trunks—especially any Hudsons—and disintegrate.
“To make matters even worse, I was not allowed to compete with it
because once the sun came out and the tissue tightened up, the
“birdcage” wing and tail parts suddenly warped up like a potato chip
and collapsed. The CD disqualified it for being a hazard. You should
be ashamed.
“P.S. They also told me there really is no such person as Fast
Richard. What sort of bogus explanation do you have for that?”
Isn’t that sad? Reader Frip’s experience shows how ridiculous
myths can ruin a designer’s credibility. Not any Snider Swamp? Not
any Fast Richard? Absurd!
Furthermore, Nimley, if you can’t handle a warp or two and
little setbacks such as disqualifications, you should not be flying
my designs. Finally, although I admit that one sees very few
Hudson automobiles at FF contests today, my designs should not
be totally blamed.
The 2007 One Design Honor: Another angry FFer—Elrod
Freep—E-mailed me about a subject that obviously needs to be
clarified here. It was addressed to “Fast Richard (or whoever you
really are).”
“There is talk going around here in Southern California that
your Bounty Hunter will be designated the National Free Flight
Society [NFFS] One Design for 2007! Have they lost their minds?
The Bounty Hunter 1/2A was ridiculously huge—bigger than
some of today’s C-Class models—and it won’t go higher than 20
feet on today’s short motor runs. The whole event will be ruined.
“It is bad enough that you have come out of retirement and will
probably be writing more crazy articles, but this One Design thing
is the last straw! They should not be encouraging you! The NFFS
will be hearing from me about this travesty.
“P.S. You must have lobbied everyone—you should be
ashamed.”
Freep is only partly right. I am proud to report that the Bounty
Hunter will be the 2007 NFFS One Design subject—but in a
smaller (245-square-inch) version, which should make it
competitive in classic Gas competition as well.
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:00 AM Page 57Four development 245s have been built to sort out any bugs.
Thanks to Gene Smith, Bob Stalick, Dave Parsons, and Larry Kruse
for building and flying Bounty Hunter 245s,
reporting results, and offering suggestions for
improvements.
To sum up their findings, it builds (and
rebuilds!) surprisingly easily, comes out at a
light finished weight, climbs surprisingly fast,
has a great glide, and has a true Snider Swamp
“personality.”
58 MODEL AVIATION
MA “Free Flight Sport” columnist Gene Smith built this version. The wing and stabilizer
structure are stiff, so iron-on plastic coverings can be used. One of the secrets of the
strength is the small spar between the main spar and the TE. Smith photo.
“Fast Richard” devised the distinct
“birdcage” structure while he was still a
teen-ager. It became the hallmark of many
Mathis designs. Smith photo.
Left: The new 245-square-inch Bounty
Hunter retains the original’s classic lines
and construction features. This prototype
rendition by Larry Kruse uses a canted
engine mount to preserve the fuselage
profile. Kruse photo.
Below: Designer Dick Mathis (R) discusses
some of the design features with Larry
Kruse—one of the builders of the several
prototypes. The new design is considerably
smaller than the original 416-square-inch
version, to accommodate today’s shorter
engine runs and smaller fields.
The original 416-square-inch 1/2A version would have been fun for
serious fans of slow glides, but the 245 version presented here will be a
better all-around performer under modern rules. Tinkering with size is
in keeping with Bounty Hunter tradition because they have always
been scaled up and down to suit rules changes and available power.
Rest assured the One Design Bounty Hunter is genuine Snider
Swamp. I drew it up from a scaled-down Model Aircraft Labs Bounty
Hunter 416 kit plan, making changes and typical Fast Richard drawing
mistakes as needed to keep it as close to the more angular long-lost
original prototype as memory permits.
Photos as noted
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:25 AM Page 58September 2006 59
The bare-bones stabilizer shows the same
“birdcage” structure as the wing. The
crisscrossed diagonals provide an
excellent strength-to-weight ratio and a
warp-resistant structure. Smith photo.
The 2-56 flat-head stabilizer-adjustment screw is mounted in a short length of yellow
Nyrod tubing. A small piece of hardwood threaded for the screw and hardened with
thin cyanoacrylate could also be used. Smith photo.
The 1/8 square doublers at the rear of the pylon, extending fore and
aft, will provide needed strength in this high-stress area. DTed
landings are sometimes rough and tumble and require judiciously
beefing up the structure in key locations. Smith photo.
The fuselage is minimal in terms of weight and cross-section and
can be strengthened by adding 1/8 square doublers under the
stabilizer mount area before adding the left-side fuselage
sheeting. Smith photo.
California modeler Dave Parsons also built a prototype “Bounty
Hunter 245.” Here he tunes his Tee Dee engine before a test
flight. The NFFS One Design event will permit Tee Dee .049s or
.051s. Parsons photo.
BountyHunter
Type: 1/2A FF gas-powered model
Wingspan: 40 inches
Flying weight: 5.5-6.5 ounces
Construction: Balsa
Covering/finish: Iron-on covering or dope and tissue
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 5960 MODEL AVIATION
See page 191 for Full-Size Plans listing
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 60interesting to me to read about how
distinctive FF designs come about. It is true
that most designs are evolutionary rather
than revolutionary.
I recognize that my designs owe a lot to
the true pioneers. However, the following
letter from Reginald Foom in England about
where the Bounty Hunter design came from
was particularly irritating.
“I am writing a book about the evolution
of FF Gas design. I have several questions I
hope you can give a serious answer for.
Please do not try to be funny, as my book is a
scholarly work.
“My questions are: 1) What British model
did you copy the Bounty Hunter design
from? 2) Since no one here in Britain can
figure out where you stole the idea for the
crisscross ‘birdcage’ wing construction, do
you claim it was original with you? If you do
claim originality, you should be ashamed.”
Well, Foom, when I was a kid growing
up in the postwar, pre-RC “golden age” of
aeromodeling, things were different. Major
automotive companies and airlines and
military services were spending sponsorship
money on FF and CL competitions.
My dad and seemingly every man in the
neighborhood built model airplanes, plus we
lived roughly three blocks from the end of
the main runway of Love Field in Dallas,
Texas. Everywhere I looked I saw airplanes.
Worn-out Austin pneumatic FF timers
and deceased Ohlsson .23 sideports served as
Fast Richard the Toddler’s main toys. My
late dad Don flew FF and CL but was more
accomplished at the latter, so he taught me to
fly CL when I was 6 and put less emphasis
on the FF part.
Nevertheless, I was always more
interested in FF gliders and wind-up Jim
Walker Hornets because I could assemble,
modify, and fly them by myself all day every
day. Much of my early FF was self-taught
and unguided until I discovered Zaic Year
Books, British magazines, and joined the
Dallas Cloud Climbers FF club at
approximately age 14.
The Bounty Hunter started coming
together six years later, between 1960 and
1961, when I was 19, but it had many
influences behind it. As a teen-age Fast
Richard in the period leading up to 1961 I
had met Chicago’s Russ Hansen and seen his
high-thrust T-Birds go.
I had watched Bob Latham dominate
contests in the Dallas-Forth Worth area with
high-thrust, swept-wingtip designs, and I
noted that many European A-2 Gliders had
flat center-panel wings with tip dihedral. I
had also met and received guidance from
Larry Conover, whose angular designs
always inspired me.
Finally, I had flown a great deal of Indoor
Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), in which
Curt Stevens’ sharp high-point airfoils were
extraordinarily popular. I also figured out
that warren truss wing ribs were less warp
prone than traditional 90˚ layouts. Somehow
I translated Steven’s airfoil idea and warren
truss into the “birdcage” construction
62 MODEL AVIATION
technique—an original idea.
Pre-Bounty Hunter I had successfully
used the “birdcage” wing and tail
construction on an FAI Power model and the
colossal Cage 1/2A—a Thermal Hopperpowered
creation weighing roughly 8 ounces
with 600 square inches of wing attached to
an ultralong stick-and-tissue fuselage
punctuated with a tiny stabilizer and no
pylon (sort of like a modern F1C without
carbon).
The Cage had an I-Beam spar glued up
from 1/16 sheet, and the diamond airfoil’s
thickness worked out to 4%-5%. It had
crisscross stick ribs and was a fast climber,
considering it was approximately three times
bigger than a normal 1/2A. The glide was
stunning.
The Cage lasted long enough for me to
present it to a flabbergasted meeting of the
Cloud Climbers, but it proved to be sensitive
to careless launches, exploding full-bore in a
puff of red tissue and 1/16 square sticks after
narrowly missing my car: a battered black
1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Coupe.
The next 1/2A following the Ghia’s
escape from the Cage was the original
Bounty Hunter. For a short time, including
during its first contest victory, it was low
thrust.
I did not like the shallow climb angle it
had in low-thrust configuration, so I
rewarped the wings over the kitchen stove,
popped the firewall and nacelle cheeks off,
and made it high thrust. After that it climbed
vertically, as I wanted.
Thus a design signature emerged for me:
high-thrust; swept tips, pylon, and inverted
fin; flat center panel; angular lines;
“birdcage” structure; and HLG airfoil. I
recall there being only minor refinements to
the design leading up to its being kitted by
Model Aircraft Labs in the early 1960s and
published in American Modeler magazine,
although there were changes in the way we
set up and trimmed it.
Several prominent designers and fliers
including Bill Chenault, Jim Clem, and Jerry
Murphy helped improve the design at the
time of kitting by building and testing
Bounty Hunters and providing feedback. It
seems weird now to think of Jim
(Witchdoctor) or Bill (Mini Pearl) everflying Bounty Hunters, but it happened.
Although we were rivals at contests, we
were proud to promote worthy designs from
the Southwest.
My own Bounty Hunter eventually went
away OOS [out of sight] in an Oklahoma
boomer. However, many others were built
across the country, including various sizes
ranging from 200 to 1,000 square inches.
I made and distributed some rough
drawings for the 1,000-square-inch version.
In the hands of Jack Nix and others it
became my favorite Bounty Hunter size,
although I never had one of my own. The
Bounty Hunter is a friendly but highperforming
design in any size.
Construction: In the scaling-down process I
shortened the nose from the original
drawings, but the four 245 prototypes still
came out nose-heavy.
You should wait to attach the motor
nacelles and complete the front of the
fuselage until the rest of the airplane is
finished. Then slide the power pod to the
right place to obtain the CG location
specified and glue it all up. It may mean you
have to inset the pod in the pylon. With heatshrink
covering the completed airplane
should weigh 5.5-6.5 ounces.
I hate bent fuselages, so I build straight
ones by pinning one sheet side to a flat board
and gluing in the first layer of 1/8 square
stringers and uprights. Then the pylon and
fin go in, and the gaps between them receive
the middle 1/8 square pieces. I glue the 1/8-
inch stringers and uprights to the other side,
remove the pins that were holding down the
first side, and glue on the second side with
books piled on top to hold everything flat.
Be extra careful to sink the front wing
rubber-band hold-down hook low enough
and even with, or slightly behind, the LE to
secure the wing tight to the platform. Key
the wing and rig the pop-up DT to at least
50˚. Make sure your wing has at least some
“net” washin on the left main panel
(meaning all the warps combined should
equal that much washin).
Trimming: Some readers, such as Seymour
Throop, simply do not follow Fast Richard’s
recommendations—and they pay the price.
“I have built several of your FF Gas
designs from magazine publications, and
every one has been impossible to trim. I
follow all your instructions except I do not
believe in warping wings on purpose and I
move all of the CGs ahead an extra inch just
to be safe.
“They never crash, but all they do is
loops and barrel rolls. Some guys in my club
say they saw you fly in the 1960s and your
mother had to trim all of your stuff for
you—but they say she was really good at it.
You should be ashamed for not giving her
credit.”
Okay, Seymour, I confess. My late
mother Judy always adjusted my models and
taught me Mama’s Four Truths of
Trimming, which would help you remember.
First, kitchen stoves are for warping your
model airplanes. Second, put the CG where
the designer has it. Third, most designs fly
best when they are crooked, or
crossadjusted—like wing warps
counteracted by rudder tab. Fourth, to climb
straight up you need more down—as in take
the up out of your stabilizer to go more up.
If it were my new 245, my mama were
observing, I had the CG in the right place
and had matched all the angles on the plans,
and I was positive about the straight fuselage
and fin, I would go out in calm weather and
do numerous hand glides. There should be a
teeny bit of left rudder tab (1/32 inch) to start
with, and I would add stabilizer tilt until it
obviously had a slight left-circle tendency.
I would want a long floating glide with
the wings flat—not banked. I might have to
glide it 20-30 times to be sure. I would even
purposely bank it slightly left and toss it into
a mild stall to see if it recovered smoothly.
I would be shimming the stabilizer to get
the glide just right—no changes to the CG.
Once it looked good, I would send it off for
three to four seconds at full power. After that
(assuming I could find all the pieces) I
would correct the stabilizer shims and rudder
tab to adjust the climb, and open or tighten
the stabilizer tilt to smooth the glide.
Bounty Hunters with the proper amount
of crookedness (washin on the left side of
the wing) should crash only when they go
to the right in the climb, so you should use
only enough left rudder tab to keep that
from happening.
If your Bounty Hunter wants to crash to
the left, take out rudder tab. Then if it still
wants to crash left, something is wrong, so
wash in the left wing more. As a last resort
you could also shim the TE of the stabilizer
up a bit.
If your Bounty Hunter is loopy, it will
eventually end up climbing in a hot thermal,
go to the right, and crash, so take the loop
out with down-stabilizer. Make it glide to
the left with stabilizer or wing tilt, which
affects only glide. A hot (and safe) Bounty
Hunter 245 might make a quarter of a left
turn on a full engine run and go nearly
vertical.
Because it is obvious that some FF types
will never heed Fast Richard’s instructions,
maybe they will at least listen to his mama.
Competing With the Bounty Hunter:
Admittedly, Fast Richard is a bit rusty from
not flying for several decades, and there
may occasionally be a slipup in the heat of
competition. When that happens we should
just move on. It does not help any when socalled
fans constantly remind us of it, as in
the following snide E-mail message I
received today from Vince Thrid.
“We are all glad you are back, especially
because your flights give us something
entertaining to talk about between contests.
I hear your F1C FF performed several parts
of the CL Stunt pattern (including a highspeed
inverted pass over the flightline) last
week at the Texas Cloud Climbers meet
before it stuck in the ground like a spear. At
least you did not injure anyone—and you
have not been disqualified yet.
“Keep up the good work.”
About all there is to say to Vince is,
Wait until next year when I arrive in my
vintage Hudson Terraplane with my
Bounty Hunter 245 going good for the
one-design competitions. You will notice
that it is adjusted perfectly, just as my
mama would do it. May we all (with the
exception of Elrod Freep) max out in 2007
with our 245s. MA
Richard Mathis
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/09
Page Numbers: 57,58,59,60,62,64
September 2006 57
Dick “Fast Richard” Mathis has returned to FF after a 30-year
hiatus to produce a new version of his famous Bounty Hunter
design for the NFFS’s 2007 One Design event. Larry Kruse photo.
BountyHunter
by Richard Mathis
Set records with this “Fast
Richard” design of the
infamous record holder
SNIDER SWAMP, Louisiana—June 2, 2006: Once upon a time in
Snider Swamp I wrote many FF articles. Yes, I was paid a few dollars,
but the real reason for doing them was that I loved FF and thought
plenty of FFers would build my designs and win contests with them.
Ultimately I hoped to receive the kind of acclaim reserved for FF
royalty such as the great Sal Taibi and the late Carl Goldberg.
Today, instead of acclaim there is suspicion and misinformation.
There is even doubt about whether there ever was a Snider Swamp or a
Fast Richard (that’s me)! How sad.
During the three decades I have been retired from modeling, I have
often reflected on the possible reasons I failed. As a result, I have
figured out that the blame rests totally on my cynical and grouchy
readers, who always seemed to be lacking in the skills needed to make
my designs really go like they are supposed to.
Would you believe that I am still receiving hostile mail more than
three decades after my last article? It can be very discouraging.
As proof, check out the following letter from Midwestern reader
Nimley Frip about his recent experiences with my signature design: the
original 1961 Bounty Hunter. The whole thing is typical of the insane
correspondence I get.
“Who do you think you’re kidding? I just found out that everyone
up here in Ohio (except me) already knew Snider Swamp is not real! I
am totally embarrassed because I was always a fan of yours and
believed everything you wrote. I even built one of your designs in
1967, the Bounty Hunter.
“Last Sunday when I took it out to my first contest in 37 years,
everyone laughed at it and said it has been discovered that you never
built any of your own designs, you just made up all the great contest
records, and all of your designs automatically crash into open car
trunks—especially any Hudsons—and disintegrate.
“To make matters even worse, I was not allowed to compete with it
because once the sun came out and the tissue tightened up, the
“birdcage” wing and tail parts suddenly warped up like a potato chip
and collapsed. The CD disqualified it for being a hazard. You should
be ashamed.
“P.S. They also told me there really is no such person as Fast
Richard. What sort of bogus explanation do you have for that?”
Isn’t that sad? Reader Frip’s experience shows how ridiculous
myths can ruin a designer’s credibility. Not any Snider Swamp? Not
any Fast Richard? Absurd!
Furthermore, Nimley, if you can’t handle a warp or two and
little setbacks such as disqualifications, you should not be flying
my designs. Finally, although I admit that one sees very few
Hudson automobiles at FF contests today, my designs should not
be totally blamed.
The 2007 One Design Honor: Another angry FFer—Elrod
Freep—E-mailed me about a subject that obviously needs to be
clarified here. It was addressed to “Fast Richard (or whoever you
really are).”
“There is talk going around here in Southern California that
your Bounty Hunter will be designated the National Free Flight
Society [NFFS] One Design for 2007! Have they lost their minds?
The Bounty Hunter 1/2A was ridiculously huge—bigger than
some of today’s C-Class models—and it won’t go higher than 20
feet on today’s short motor runs. The whole event will be ruined.
“It is bad enough that you have come out of retirement and will
probably be writing more crazy articles, but this One Design thing
is the last straw! They should not be encouraging you! The NFFS
will be hearing from me about this travesty.
“P.S. You must have lobbied everyone—you should be
ashamed.”
Freep is only partly right. I am proud to report that the Bounty
Hunter will be the 2007 NFFS One Design subject—but in a
smaller (245-square-inch) version, which should make it
competitive in classic Gas competition as well.
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:00 AM Page 57Four development 245s have been built to sort out any bugs.
Thanks to Gene Smith, Bob Stalick, Dave Parsons, and Larry Kruse
for building and flying Bounty Hunter 245s,
reporting results, and offering suggestions for
improvements.
To sum up their findings, it builds (and
rebuilds!) surprisingly easily, comes out at a
light finished weight, climbs surprisingly fast,
has a great glide, and has a true Snider Swamp
“personality.”
58 MODEL AVIATION
MA “Free Flight Sport” columnist Gene Smith built this version. The wing and stabilizer
structure are stiff, so iron-on plastic coverings can be used. One of the secrets of the
strength is the small spar between the main spar and the TE. Smith photo.
“Fast Richard” devised the distinct
“birdcage” structure while he was still a
teen-ager. It became the hallmark of many
Mathis designs. Smith photo.
Left: The new 245-square-inch Bounty
Hunter retains the original’s classic lines
and construction features. This prototype
rendition by Larry Kruse uses a canted
engine mount to preserve the fuselage
profile. Kruse photo.
Below: Designer Dick Mathis (R) discusses
some of the design features with Larry
Kruse—one of the builders of the several
prototypes. The new design is considerably
smaller than the original 416-square-inch
version, to accommodate today’s shorter
engine runs and smaller fields.
The original 416-square-inch 1/2A version would have been fun for
serious fans of slow glides, but the 245 version presented here will be a
better all-around performer under modern rules. Tinkering with size is
in keeping with Bounty Hunter tradition because they have always
been scaled up and down to suit rules changes and available power.
Rest assured the One Design Bounty Hunter is genuine Snider
Swamp. I drew it up from a scaled-down Model Aircraft Labs Bounty
Hunter 416 kit plan, making changes and typical Fast Richard drawing
mistakes as needed to keep it as close to the more angular long-lost
original prototype as memory permits.
Photos as noted
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:25 AM Page 58September 2006 59
The bare-bones stabilizer shows the same
“birdcage” structure as the wing. The
crisscrossed diagonals provide an
excellent strength-to-weight ratio and a
warp-resistant structure. Smith photo.
The 2-56 flat-head stabilizer-adjustment screw is mounted in a short length of yellow
Nyrod tubing. A small piece of hardwood threaded for the screw and hardened with
thin cyanoacrylate could also be used. Smith photo.
The 1/8 square doublers at the rear of the pylon, extending fore and
aft, will provide needed strength in this high-stress area. DTed
landings are sometimes rough and tumble and require judiciously
beefing up the structure in key locations. Smith photo.
The fuselage is minimal in terms of weight and cross-section and
can be strengthened by adding 1/8 square doublers under the
stabilizer mount area before adding the left-side fuselage
sheeting. Smith photo.
California modeler Dave Parsons also built a prototype “Bounty
Hunter 245.” Here he tunes his Tee Dee engine before a test
flight. The NFFS One Design event will permit Tee Dee .049s or
.051s. Parsons photo.
BountyHunter
Type: 1/2A FF gas-powered model
Wingspan: 40 inches
Flying weight: 5.5-6.5 ounces
Construction: Balsa
Covering/finish: Iron-on covering or dope and tissue
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 5960 MODEL AVIATION
See page 191 for Full-Size Plans listing
09sig2.QXD 7/25/06 10:04 AM Page 60interesting to me to read about how
distinctive FF designs come about. It is true
that most designs are evolutionary rather
than revolutionary.
I recognize that my designs owe a lot to
the true pioneers. However, the following
letter from Reginald Foom in England about
where the Bounty Hunter design came from
was particularly irritating.
“I am writing a book about the evolution
of FF Gas design. I have several questions I
hope you can give a serious answer for.
Please do not try to be funny, as my book is a
scholarly work.
“My questions are: 1) What British model
did you copy the Bounty Hunter design
from? 2) Since no one here in Britain can
figure out where you stole the idea for the
crisscross ‘birdcage’ wing construction, do
you claim it was original with you? If you do
claim originality, you should be ashamed.”
Well, Foom, when I was a kid growing
up in the postwar, pre-RC “golden age” of
aeromodeling, things were different. Major
automotive companies and airlines and
military services were spending sponsorship
money on FF and CL competitions.
My dad and seemingly every man in the
neighborhood built model airplanes, plus we
lived roughly three blocks from the end of
the main runway of Love Field in Dallas,
Texas. Everywhere I looked I saw airplanes.
Worn-out Austin pneumatic FF timers
and deceased Ohlsson .23 sideports served as
Fast Richard the Toddler’s main toys. My
late dad Don flew FF and CL but was more
accomplished at the latter, so he taught me to
fly CL when I was 6 and put less emphasis
on the FF part.
Nevertheless, I was always more
interested in FF gliders and wind-up Jim
Walker Hornets because I could assemble,
modify, and fly them by myself all day every
day. Much of my early FF was self-taught
and unguided until I discovered Zaic Year
Books, British magazines, and joined the
Dallas Cloud Climbers FF club at
approximately age 14.
The Bounty Hunter started coming
together six years later, between 1960 and
1961, when I was 19, but it had many
influences behind it. As a teen-age Fast
Richard in the period leading up to 1961 I
had met Chicago’s Russ Hansen and seen his
high-thrust T-Birds go.
I had watched Bob Latham dominate
contests in the Dallas-Forth Worth area with
high-thrust, swept-wingtip designs, and I
noted that many European A-2 Gliders had
flat center-panel wings with tip dihedral. I
had also met and received guidance from
Larry Conover, whose angular designs
always inspired me.
Finally, I had flown a great deal of Indoor
Hand-Launched Glider (HLG), in which
Curt Stevens’ sharp high-point airfoils were
extraordinarily popular. I also figured out
that warren truss wing ribs were less warp
prone than traditional 90˚ layouts. Somehow
I translated Steven’s airfoil idea and warren
truss into the “birdcage” construction
62 MODEL AVIATION
technique—an original idea.
Pre-Bounty Hunter I had successfully
used the “birdcage” wing and tail
construction on an FAI Power model and the
colossal Cage 1/2A—a Thermal Hopperpowered
creation weighing roughly 8 ounces
with 600 square inches of wing attached to
an ultralong stick-and-tissue fuselage
punctuated with a tiny stabilizer and no
pylon (sort of like a modern F1C without
carbon).
The Cage had an I-Beam spar glued up
from 1/16 sheet, and the diamond airfoil’s
thickness worked out to 4%-5%. It had
crisscross stick ribs and was a fast climber,
considering it was approximately three times
bigger than a normal 1/2A. The glide was
stunning.
The Cage lasted long enough for me to
present it to a flabbergasted meeting of the
Cloud Climbers, but it proved to be sensitive
to careless launches, exploding full-bore in a
puff of red tissue and 1/16 square sticks after
narrowly missing my car: a battered black
1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Coupe.
The next 1/2A following the Ghia’s
escape from the Cage was the original
Bounty Hunter. For a short time, including
during its first contest victory, it was low
thrust.
I did not like the shallow climb angle it
had in low-thrust configuration, so I
rewarped the wings over the kitchen stove,
popped the firewall and nacelle cheeks off,
and made it high thrust. After that it climbed
vertically, as I wanted.
Thus a design signature emerged for me:
high-thrust; swept tips, pylon, and inverted
fin; flat center panel; angular lines;
“birdcage” structure; and HLG airfoil. I
recall there being only minor refinements to
the design leading up to its being kitted by
Model Aircraft Labs in the early 1960s and
published in American Modeler magazine,
although there were changes in the way we
set up and trimmed it.
Several prominent designers and fliers
including Bill Chenault, Jim Clem, and Jerry
Murphy helped improve the design at the
time of kitting by building and testing
Bounty Hunters and providing feedback. It
seems weird now to think of Jim
(Witchdoctor) or Bill (Mini Pearl) everflying Bounty Hunters, but it happened.
Although we were rivals at contests, we
were proud to promote worthy designs from
the Southwest.
My own Bounty Hunter eventually went
away OOS [out of sight] in an Oklahoma
boomer. However, many others were built
across the country, including various sizes
ranging from 200 to 1,000 square inches.
I made and distributed some rough
drawings for the 1,000-square-inch version.
In the hands of Jack Nix and others it
became my favorite Bounty Hunter size,
although I never had one of my own. The
Bounty Hunter is a friendly but highperforming
design in any size.
Construction: In the scaling-down process I
shortened the nose from the original
drawings, but the four 245 prototypes still
came out nose-heavy.
You should wait to attach the motor
nacelles and complete the front of the
fuselage until the rest of the airplane is
finished. Then slide the power pod to the
right place to obtain the CG location
specified and glue it all up. It may mean you
have to inset the pod in the pylon. With heatshrink
covering the completed airplane
should weigh 5.5-6.5 ounces.
I hate bent fuselages, so I build straight
ones by pinning one sheet side to a flat board
and gluing in the first layer of 1/8 square
stringers and uprights. Then the pylon and
fin go in, and the gaps between them receive
the middle 1/8 square pieces. I glue the 1/8-
inch stringers and uprights to the other side,
remove the pins that were holding down the
first side, and glue on the second side with
books piled on top to hold everything flat.
Be extra careful to sink the front wing
rubber-band hold-down hook low enough
and even with, or slightly behind, the LE to
secure the wing tight to the platform. Key
the wing and rig the pop-up DT to at least
50˚. Make sure your wing has at least some
“net” washin on the left main panel
(meaning all the warps combined should
equal that much washin).
Trimming: Some readers, such as Seymour
Throop, simply do not follow Fast Richard’s
recommendations—and they pay the price.
“I have built several of your FF Gas
designs from magazine publications, and
every one has been impossible to trim. I
follow all your instructions except I do not
believe in warping wings on purpose and I
move all of the CGs ahead an extra inch just
to be safe.
“They never crash, but all they do is
loops and barrel rolls. Some guys in my club
say they saw you fly in the 1960s and your
mother had to trim all of your stuff for
you—but they say she was really good at it.
You should be ashamed for not giving her
credit.”
Okay, Seymour, I confess. My late
mother Judy always adjusted my models and
taught me Mama’s Four Truths of
Trimming, which would help you remember.
First, kitchen stoves are for warping your
model airplanes. Second, put the CG where
the designer has it. Third, most designs fly
best when they are crooked, or
crossadjusted—like wing warps
counteracted by rudder tab. Fourth, to climb
straight up you need more down—as in take
the up out of your stabilizer to go more up.
If it were my new 245, my mama were
observing, I had the CG in the right place
and had matched all the angles on the plans,
and I was positive about the straight fuselage
and fin, I would go out in calm weather and
do numerous hand glides. There should be a
teeny bit of left rudder tab (1/32 inch) to start
with, and I would add stabilizer tilt until it
obviously had a slight left-circle tendency.
I would want a long floating glide with
the wings flat—not banked. I might have to
glide it 20-30 times to be sure. I would even
purposely bank it slightly left and toss it into
a mild stall to see if it recovered smoothly.
I would be shimming the stabilizer to get
the glide just right—no changes to the CG.
Once it looked good, I would send it off for
three to four seconds at full power. After that
(assuming I could find all the pieces) I
would correct the stabilizer shims and rudder
tab to adjust the climb, and open or tighten
the stabilizer tilt to smooth the glide.
Bounty Hunters with the proper amount
of crookedness (washin on the left side of
the wing) should crash only when they go
to the right in the climb, so you should use
only enough left rudder tab to keep that
from happening.
If your Bounty Hunter wants to crash to
the left, take out rudder tab. Then if it still
wants to crash left, something is wrong, so
wash in the left wing more. As a last resort
you could also shim the TE of the stabilizer
up a bit.
If your Bounty Hunter is loopy, it will
eventually end up climbing in a hot thermal,
go to the right, and crash, so take the loop
out with down-stabilizer. Make it glide to
the left with stabilizer or wing tilt, which
affects only glide. A hot (and safe) Bounty
Hunter 245 might make a quarter of a left
turn on a full engine run and go nearly
vertical.
Because it is obvious that some FF types
will never heed Fast Richard’s instructions,
maybe they will at least listen to his mama.
Competing With the Bounty Hunter:
Admittedly, Fast Richard is a bit rusty from
not flying for several decades, and there
may occasionally be a slipup in the heat of
competition. When that happens we should
just move on. It does not help any when socalled
fans constantly remind us of it, as in
the following snide E-mail message I
received today from Vince Thrid.
“We are all glad you are back, especially
because your flights give us something
entertaining to talk about between contests.
I hear your F1C FF performed several parts
of the CL Stunt pattern (including a highspeed
inverted pass over the flightline) last
week at the Texas Cloud Climbers meet
before it stuck in the ground like a spear. At
least you did not injure anyone—and you
have not been disqualified yet.
“Keep up the good work.”
About all there is to say to Vince is,
Wait until next year when I arrive in my
vintage Hudson Terraplane with my
Bounty Hunter 245 going good for the
one-design competitions. You will notice
that it is adjusted perfectly, just as my
mama would do it. May we all (with the
exception of Elrod Freep) max out in 2007
with our 245s. MA
Richard Mathis