ORIGINAL: TonyF
I completely agree with Mike's timeline. That is exactly as I know it. IMO, Dave had very little to do with the design of the Tiporare, other then maybe a few suggestions. It was a way to kit a ''Curare'' that some thought prettier and without royalties to Hanno. I do have to disagree with Mike on one thing. Hanson could frame up more then one airplane a week! He was fast! and his shop didn't have much in the way of power tools. I think he had a band saw and Dremel jig saw and that was it.
Things are starting to fall into place now. The world's in OH that Dick was referring to were Springfield '77. Although the worlds were in Doylestown in '71, that was in PA not in OH although there are Doylestown's in both states. In '71 I was also a young lad so the events were of little importance to me then. It's interesting that in those days there was little concern about
plagiarism. I think Dick did a great job in re-designing the Curare but in retrospect it does sound like a "sneaky" way to avoid giving Hanno his dues... Hanno was likely just flattered. In those days, people didn't sue each other as a means of exercise as we do today. Funny thing is that 30 years later Curare's are available once again - as Austrian ARF's!
Not to continue harping on the same issue but Dick must have had to frame up ~3 models a week if he was going to get those 150 proto's built and tested in a year. Sounds like it is more likely that he built ~75 a year over the period of summer '77 to fall '79 when the final T720 configuration was finalized. That's still a heck of a lot planes to build, finish
and fly in a two year time span and basically two flying seasons at those latitudes.
ORIGINAL: TonyF
World's were in Doylestown, PA in '71, in Italy in '73.
Right, so it was Pennsylvania '71. It then went as follows:
[ul][*] Doylestown, PA, USA '71 (Geizendanner, Marabu)[*] Gorizia, Italy '73 (Yoshioka, Blue Angel)[*] Bern, Switzerland '75 (Matt, Atlas)[*] Springfield, OH, USA '77 (Prettner, Curare)[*] Johannesburg, South Africa '79 (Matt, Arrow)[*] Acapulco, Mexico '81 (Prettner, Magic)[*] Pensacola, FL, USA '83 (Prettner, Calypso)[*] Flevohof, Holland '85 (prettner, Supra Fly)[*] Avignon, France '87 (Prettner, Supra Star)[*] Chesapeake, VA, USA '89 (Prettner, Supra Star)
[/ul]
Thought it might be cool to have this written down somewhere.
ORIGINAL: TonyF
BTW, Dick once told me that the name came from the WW1 song, It's a long way from ''Tiporare''.
Tony, he must have been pulling your leg, the song is called "It's a long long way to Tipperary". Tipperary is a town in Ireland...
I suspect that Dick's son was not aware of such song in those days.
Rare-type sounds like a plausible explanation for how the design's name was coined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_...y_to_Tipperary
David.