Flying V Gibson Guitar

The Gibson Flying V Guitar made its debut in prototype form around 1957. Ted McCarty came up with the Flying V design, the Futura and the Modern. These were suppose to bring Gibson into the future with their more modernistic looks. The Flying V and the other modernistic designs were discontinued after only one year of their public launching. The initial prototype was rounded not cut out on the backs and were made of a beautiful mahogany not the final wood Limba.

The name of the Flying V came about because shape and similarity to the letter V. Korina was another name these fabulous guitars went by because of their blond coloring. Two of the finest known blues guitarists of the time bought and used these when they were released onto the markets. They were the great Albert King and rock blues Lonnie Mack. Within the 60's the Flying V was also used by the ever talented Jimi Hendrix and Dave Davies. Popularity of the guitar rose again and so Gibson decided to produce a reissue of it.

These newer re-issued models were not made of the African wood Limba but of Mahogany. The differences in these and the original ones are that they had a stop-bar tailpiece and a pick-guard which was larger than the originals. The strings within the first models were made to go through the backs onto the original bridges. Once heavy metal started gaining popularity in the 1970's with the talents of KK Downing and Michael Schenker using them in their concerts.

In tribute to Jimi Hendrix V he used Gibson made one in a signature series just for him called the Jimi Hendrix V. Addititionally there is one in tribute to Lonnie Mack called the Mack. This Mack V included the same exact set up as he carried on his through his rocking career. It had the immaculate Tremelo arm and the comfort of the Bigsby tail-piece. Guinness Book of World Records even has a Flying V record within it. Scott Rippetoe had an amazing idea to make among the largest V's ever which could be played and looked exactly like the Flying V's on the markets in 2000. It ended up being a whopping forty three feet big winning the record for the largest and being entered into Guinness.

Copies of the Flying V's were popping up all over the place once they reemerged. Enough details were changed about them that there were no infringements on any Gibson copy rights. The Concorde is one of the most known. It was designed and specially made for the powerful guitarist Randy Rhoads. After his tragic and untimely death they renamed in in honor of him to the Jackson Rhoads model.

Rather than the symmetrical cut the real V's had the Jackson Rhoads models contained an asymmetrical one. Ratt's guitarist the talented Robbin Crosby had the King V dedicated to him for his great accomplishments in the rock and roll world too. Companies such as Ibanez, Antares and Cort made replica copies as well which differed enough to dodge the copy right issues with the Gibson Flying V guitar.