Maximum Time Aloft

We have a confession… not all boomerangs are meant to be caught where you threw them. This is the only event where you don’t necessarily want to catch the boomerang from where you threw it. This event is all about staying in the air as long as possible, which means the wind might carry it a few hundred meters away from you.

But the feeling of catching a boomerang a minute after you threw it is what makes running after it worth it!

Competing

There have been a few versions of this event. The two most common are MTA 100 and MTA Unlimited.

The most common is the MTA 100 event, where the boomerang must be thrown and caught anywhere within a 50m ring (or 100m diameter). The MTA Unlimited version has no distance restrictions once the boomerang has been thrown.

In each version, there is a 15-minute general warmup. Each competitor gets five throws, where the top three are added to get one total time. The longest time wins the event.

Throwers are sorted into groups with a minimum of five people. Each circle can have up to five groups, with one person from each group throwing at the same time. When a thrower takes their turn, three other people in their group should time their throw, with the middle time of the three being counted as the official time.

For MTA 100, one person in a group will also follow the thrower, acting as a range steward to ensure the catch is made within the 50m ring (they may be an official timer as well).

How to Throw an MTA

This is one of the trickier throws to master. Current MTA boomerangs are typically carbon fiber, one of the lightest composites that is also durable enough to make a boomerang you can use for many years.

The traditional MTA throw is much higher than the average boomerang at an extremely vertical angle, and you’ll want to throw more into the wind. Focus more on the snap of your wrist than the power of your throw to give the boomerang more rotational speed than translational speed.

Especially on a windy day, you will likely need to run after your MTA, so make sure you’re on a field with enough space for these boomerangs. If you’re worried about it going too far, you can always add some rubber bands to make it fall quicker. One tip to ensure you don’t have to run more than you need to however is to make sure you have your MTA tuned properly!

Instead of a circular path, you’ll want your boomerang to travel in an ellipse so that it comes back over your head. For a two-bladed MTA, you can grab each end and slightly bend them inwards towards each other. This will give them more angle of attack so it makes its turn more quickly and adds some hover so it can stay up longer.

The wind is going to do a lot of the work for you to bring it back, so make sure you run downwind to catch your MTA!

If you are in need of buying an MTA, some crafters who specialize in MTAs are Boompop (based in Italy & Columbia), James Hoy (UK), and Thiago (Brazil). Check them out in our full vendor list below!