Revised February 8, 2006

Cirrus No. 1, (Originally D-9406)  

Currently Owned by:  Schempp-Hirth

STATUS: Under restoration, December 2003

LOCATION: Kircheim, Germany

The original and only V tailed prototype Cirrus was imported from Schempp- Hirth in, 1968.to South Africa by "Ted" ( Edward) Pearson, as reported by his son Nigel who lives at Box 7788, Nelspruit 1200, South Africa, and exprsssed a willingness to provide additional information.   (Edward died in November 2005 in Zimbabwe aged 82 years) Ted was also for many years the agent for Schempp-Hirth in South Africa based in Gillitts/Hillcrest in Natal South Africa. Later "Tim" Mouwet-Biggs ( spelling?) was the local agent.

Ted nicknamed the V tailed Cirrus " Twitchyvoegel" because it was very sensitive , or twitchy, in the longitudinal axis/sensitive elevators. Ted came second in either the 1968 or 1969 South African Open Nationals flying the prototype. The dates of import and  details of the nationals he flew it in, and what cross countries he flew in it, and when, can be verified if anyone is interested as Nigel's brother Bradley, who lives in London, has all of Teds' pilots log books dating back to the mid 1940's. I am sure he and maybe I also have some photos and maybe some Super 8 movie footage of the Cirrus V1 in action.

Ted sold the V1 to Mr.Cliff Hyde in South Africa in 1970 when he took delivery of his Standard Cirrus in which he won the South African Nationals Standard Class in 1971. It's not known what happened to it after that but it appears that Tilo Holighaus located it still in South Africa.

Before the V1 Ted had previously owned an SH1 Austria that he imported into Northern Rhodesia/Zambia in either 1965 or 1966 and later brought to South Africa. After the Standard Cirrus he owned a Nimbus 2 - which differed from many others as the Rudder was Fabric covered and not Glass fibre - in this Nimbus 2 he set a world 500km triangle speed record in Namibia in November 1976.

We have reports from Peter Purdie, Fred Mueller, and Tilo Holighaus (in February, 2006) that shine much light into the current status of Cirrus No. 1.  The V-tailed prototype was located in South Africa sometime in 2002 and was repatriated to Germany, where plans were and are to restore it to "original ex-works" condition as a memorial of sorts to Klaus, since this ship was the first complete Klaus Holighaus design (although he'd been a third of the D36 Akafleig team, and had done the design work to stretch the Austria Standard to the SHK.)

The photo at right was taken by Fred Mueller on a trip to the factory in September, 2003.  Fred also reported that, given the current high activity of the factory regarding the Duo and Discus machines, that the restoration had been rather delayed.  There are no visible registration numbers on the fuselage at this time, so it's not clear if the original D-9406 numbers can be reapplied.