Item BR23
This Item was Sold on 18 January
2008 for $148
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I first met Mickey Kinley in 1981 while living in West
Palm Beach, Florida. I had introduced a neighbor, Jim
MacNeil, to the sport of boomeranging a few months before I
met Mickey. Jim and I had purchased several hooks from Al
Gerhards. Jim was throwing one of his Gerhards hooks in a
big field in Boca Raton adjacent to the Florida Atlantic
campus, where he was taking Engineering classes. Suddenly, a
man who had been playing golf in the distance started
running towards Jim. Jim met an excited Mickey Kinley who
introduced himself as a new boomerang thrower. Mickey was a
woodworker by profession and had started making strip
laminated traditional boomerangs on his own. He had never
seen anything like a Gerhards hook. Mickey begged Jim to
loan him the Gerhards hook for a day so he could make a
copy. Jim agreed and told me that he would meet Mickey on
the following day. Jim and I drove down to throw with
Mickey. The day was hot and calm. The ground was covered
with burrowing owl holes, so you had to watch your feet when
you were running. Mickey arrived with an arm load of his
strip laminated traditionals and a single copy of the
Gerhards hook. This was a PERFECT COPY, complete with
weights! The only problem was that it didn't return. I was
not yet an expert at tuning and Mickey decided to adjust the
flight by filing down the airfoils using instructions from
the Lorin Hawes book. The Gerhards hook copy was filed down
until it was so thin that it eventually broke. The following
year, I moved from West Palm Beach to Ohio, but I stayed in
touch with Mickey. In 1983, Mickey sent me examples of his
strip laminated hooks and omegas. These were absolutely
beautiful. They were weighted and had a flight range of 75 -
100 metres. These were good returners, but they had a very
slight tendency to spiral out of a stable hover at the end
of the flight. This was easily corrected by adding some tape
flaps to slow the rotation down a bit. In 1984, Mickey moved
on to make Boomalums, the first long distance boomerangs
made out of Aluminum. Mickey is a famous and early pioneer
in the long distance event. His name doesn't show up in the
record books because he rarely went to tournaments, but his
boomalums were the boomerangs of choice in the long distance
event for many years. This strip laminated Kinley Omega is gorgeous. Most of
the S/L Omegas were weighted. This is the first one I have
ever seen that was made out of Olivewood and unweighted. I
haven't thrown this one, but it looks like it would have a
flight range of 50-60 metres. These are very rare. Mickey
only made strip laminated hooks and omegas for a couple of
years and then he moved on to make long distance
Boomalums.