Spyderco Szabo, what happened to the flipper?

[CapitalizedLiving]

I was talking to Laci recently and he mentioned that the Folding Fly (AKA the Spyderco Szabo Folder) was originally designed as a flipper, both for opening and for additional protection.

Examples of the custom Folding Fly are rare, I think David Mosier only ever made a handful of them. Here is a thread from another forum showing several photos of one:

http://popgun.ru/viewtopic.php?f=344&t=553534

Was the flipper removed for the Spyderco version due to the different locking mechanism? As you can see, the custom in the pics above is a liner lock, so I would imagine it functions quite differently. But I'm not sure if the flipper arm was removed for this reason or because of something else.

 

[Liquid Cobra]

I don't know but if that was a little smaller with the flipper and compression lock I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

 

[@LeathermanGX]

My Szabo was way to stiff to be a flipper. I actually sent it in to Spyderco for stiffness and grinding, just recently.

 

[Jastab]

I love my Szabo how it is, I think Spyderco went the right direction with this one.