Parker Fly

Manufacturer	Parker Guitars
Period	1993–Present.
Body type	Solid Double Cut
Neck joint	Set
Scale	25.5"
Body	Various tone woods with a carbon fibre exoskeleton
Neck	Various tone woods with a carbon fibre exoskeleton
Fretboard	Carbon Fibre
Bridge	Fishman piezo vibrato bridge
Pickup(s)	2 splitable Humbuckers 1 single coil 1 piezo
Various

The Parker Fly is a type of electric guitar built by Parker Guitars. It was designed by Ken Parker and Larry Fishman, and first produced in 1993. The Fly is unique among electric guitars in the way it uses composite materials. It is notable for its light weight (4.5 lb; 2.0 kg) and resonance. It was also one of the first electric guitars to combine traditional magnetic pickups with piezoelectric pickups, allowing the guitarist to access both acoustic and electric tones.

Inspired by earlier musical instruments like the lute, Ken Parker began experimenting with hardwood exoskeletons to provide rigidity to the instrument but hardwood was too difficult to work with and did not achieve satisfactory results. Inspired by a friend who used carbon fiber to build speed boats, Ken Parker started experimenting with the material. Today, Flys are built with an exoskeleton along the back and around the neck of the guitar. It is made from a carbon fibre/glass/epoxy composite material that is thinner than the paint finish. The same composite also comprises the fretboard material.

The exoskeleton provides the guitar with strength and rigidity, as well as increasing the guitar's sustain. It also gives the added benefit of allowing a smaller, more efficient body. One of Ken Parker's primary goals in designing the Fly was to build a guitar with less mass than a traditional electric guitar but with the same or even more rigidity. The composite exoskeleton is one of the primary reasons why such a design is possible.

The frets on the Parker Fly are constructed of hardened stainless-steel, they have no tangs, and are instead attached using a high-tech adhesive. Parker Fly guitars typically have twenty-four frets.

The Parker Fly has a vibrato system that allows the player to select from a fixed-bridge mode, a bend-down-only mode, and a free-float mode. The vibrato system uses a flat spring allowing the user to easily adjust the tension. The spring's natural tension is selected according to the gauge of strings used by the guitar player. The original Fly design incorporated a wheel on the face of the guitar to adjust the spring tension, while more recent models have moved the tension adjustment to inside the guitar. The tremolo bridge has been designed to stay in perfect tune, even with heavy use of the bar.

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