ORIGINAL: doxilia
ORIGINAL: Passport1
Yes that is correct Hobby Barn has the rights to these models. Bill told me that they had to pay Hanno for every plane they made. He then went on to say over its ten year life span, they made approx 5000 Curares. That is a huge number but back then sport flyers all had a pattern plane as well.
As far as the kit price I was just guessing but it will take actually making the first one this week to know exactley how much it will be.
C
Well,
That's a very interesting back story. So presumably both Hanno and Wolfgang would continue to receive royalties from new runs of HB molds or wasn't it a life long commitment? (man, smart phones can be obtuse in their ''spell checking'')
That aside, as far as the re-production of these classics go, with the exception of the Curare and, to some extent, the Magic (a fuse top deck is available), there really isn't a source for these models to be built or flown other than some availability of plans. Because of this, my vote would go to a new production run of the rarer Thunderbird, Super Curare and, mostly, the Arrow. Not much has been done toward the preservation of Matt's classic designs - as far as I know...
At an attractive price, a glass Arrow would be very hard to pass up.
Question: did anyone else have rights to Matt's Arrow - for example, Quality Line kits out of Tucson, AZ? What about copies such as the Arcomaster (second picture)? Any memories Chip?
Some related images for the thread...
David
I know several companies MK included produced both Prettner and Matt designs. I do not know alot about the agreements each had with individual companies but I do know this. Every company I have ever known of that either produced his planes or used his name paid him good money even by todays standards. Tom Takamatsui from EZ once told me it cost them $25,000 for Hanno to fly the freestyle at the 88 TOC with their EZ Laser and not to even ask what it took for for him to fly the Supra Fly (87 WC) and the Supra Star (89 WC)
As for Wolfgang we were just talking about this in Columbia and he said he only wanted airplanes. As long as he didn't have to build he was happy.
I never saw a Magic fly very well but it was a cool setup with the inverted engine made possible with an s header. Don't worry about not being able to get headers I saw a whole box of new ones at the barn. The Thunderbird came in at the end of an era (82 or 83) I believe and I only have seen one fly a few times. I think it would be a pretty good flying plane espesially with todays equipment.
Anyhow I will be stopping at the barn tomorrow and try to snap a few pics to post.
C