Lockheed Little Dipper Info

For those who might be interested, I did the original three- view design concept of the Little Dipper. I was a draftsman/designer working for Johnny Thorp at the time (1944) in a small isolated facility on a north east plot of the Lockheed Airport at the time. The Little Dipper idea was in response to a request by Mr. Robert Gross, President of Lockheed, for a small, easy-to-fly airplane useful for Army troops to infiltrate behind the line of battle instead of having to parachute in. Mr. Gross, also, envisioned a craft he could commute between home and work. In finalizing the design concept, I recall doing at least three different three-view versions in a single day for Mr. Gross's final approval. He actually spent considerable time during the day leaning over my drafting table making suggestions for what he wanted. It was all done with pencil and paper on vellum in those days, long before CAD. A gum eraser was very useful. Being a pilot of sorts, aside from being involved in detail design and testing of the Little Dipper, I did some demonstration flying for Mr. Short and guests at a small airstrip near Newhall California. With me at the controls, it served to prove how easy the plane was to fly. Mr. Short was a Lockheed Vice President of Engineering a couple notches above Johnny Thorp in management. Only two or three Little Dippers were built with one touring Army bases to try to get the Army interested in procuring the Little Dipper for its intended use. One feature at base demonstrations was to allow soldiers with little or no flying experience to fly the plane. On one occasion, a soldier crashed the plane doing considerable damage to it but no injury to the pilot. However, it didn't help the sales effort. Outside of providing some flying fun for Tony LeVier and Milo Burcham, Lockheed engineering test pilots, the whole idea was finally scrapped and Thorp gained access to the basic design from Lockheed which finally resulted in his popular T-18 two-place kit-design for home built versions. E V "Gus" Gustavson Glendale, CA

03/16/2008 @ 13:21 [ref: 20046] The original design for the Little Dipper was conceived by John "Johnny' Thorp, an engineer working for the Vega Aircraft Co. Mr. Thorp - and Vega - were exploring the feasibility of replacing some of the missions executed by troops parachuting behind enemy lines with a piloted soldier. Therefore, the plane would have to be simple to fly, forgiving, and able to land anywhere at very slow speeds. Vega never managed to sell the concept to the Army, and Thorp got Vega to release the design to him, and he attempted to enter the open market with the design. Three 2 place Dipper prototypes were built with 85HP engines, were certified, but Thorp was never able to attract enough investment dollars, and the design died. Johnny went on to create several all metal designs for the homebuilder, and his T-18s went on to be built around the world. 07/14/2005 @ 05:29 [ref: 10747] Will Hawkins Menlo Park, CA