| Baby | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Bert Hinkler's Avro Baby in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane | |
| Role | Sports plane |
| Manufacturer | Avro |
| Designer | Roy Chadwick |
| First flight | 30 April 1919 |
| Number built | 9 |
The Avro 534 Baby (originally named the "Popular") was a British single-seat light sporting biplane built shortly after the First World War.
The Avro Baby was a single-bay biplane of conventional configuration with a wire-braced wooden structure covered in canvas. It had equal-span, unstaggered wings which each carried two pairs of ailerons. Initially, the aircraft was finless and had a rudder of almost circular shape. There were later variations of this. The main undercarriage was a single-axle arrangement and with a tailskid. [1]
The first Babies were powered by a water-cooled inline Green C.4 engine of pre-1914 design that had previously been installed in the Avro Type D, though thoroughly remodelled postwar by the Green Engine Co. Ltd. [2] It produced 35 hp (26 kW). Most of the later Babies also used this engine design, new-built from original Green drawings by Peter Brotherhood Limited of Peterborough, though some variants used either a 60 hp (45 kW) ADC Cirrus 1 or an 80 hp (60 kW) le Rhone. These new-build Greens were about 6 lb (3 kg) lighter.
The prototype first flew on 30 April 1919 from Avro's Hamble airfield. It crashed on the nearby foreshore two minutes into the flight due to pilot error. The second prototype flew successfully on 31 May 1919. [2]
The type 534A Water Baby was a floatplane version with an altered rudder and large fin. The fourth (counting the short-lived prototype) Baby was designated Type 534B, distinguished by its plywood-covered fuselage and reduced-span lower wing. The Type 534C had both wings clipped for racing in the 1921 Aerial Derby. The 534D was a Baby modified for hot climates and was used by a businessman in India. All 534s were Green-engined single-seaters. [3]
The Type 543 Baby was a two-seater with a 2 ft 6 in (76 cm) fuselage extension. It too was initially Green-powered, but in 1926, this was replaced by an 80 hp (60 kW) ADC Cirrus 1 air-cooled upright inline engine. [4]
The final version of the Baby was the type 554 Antarctic Baby, built as photographic aircraft for the 1921–Shackleton-Rowett Expedition to Antarctica. This had an 80 hp (60 kW) le Rhone engine, raised tailplanes, rounded wingtips and tubular steel struts replacing rigging wires to avoid the problems of tensioning rigging wires with gloved hands. Like the Water Baby, it was a floatplane. [5]
By far the strangest Baby was one modified by H.G. Leigh in 1920. [6] The original wings were removed and instead the aircraft had a short, conventional, shoulder-mounted wing, bearing projecting, full-span ailerons. Above it was a strongly forward-staggered stack of six very narrow-chord wings of about the same span as the lower wing, hence each of very high aspect ratio and therefore with low induced drag. This complicated structure added about 60 lb (30 kg) to the weight. This "Venetian blind" wing design was proposed and previously explored by Horatio Phillips in the last decade of the 19th century. [7]
The Babies were raced in the early 1920s by a variety of pilots but are best remembered for the flights of G-EACQ in the hands of Bert Hinkler. On 31 May 1920 he made a non-stop flight from Croydon to Turin in 9 hours 30 minutes – a flight of 655 mi (1,050 km) and celebrated at the time as "the most meritorious flight on record". On 24 July, he won second place in the handicap category of the Aerial Derby at Hendon, and on 11 April 1921 set a new distance record in Australia when he flew the Baby non-stop from Sydney to his home town of Bundaberg 800 mi (1,288 km) away, making the flight in 8 hours 40 minutes. Hinkler's Baby is preserved at the Hinkler Hall of Aviation in Bundaberg.
In June 1922, another Baby made the first flight between London and Moscow when the Russian Gwaiter collected his machine from Hamble and flew it home.
The Antarctic Baby (or most of it) accompanied Ernest Shackleton on his final expedition to the Antarctic. Unfortunately, their ship, the Quest, delayed by engine trouble was not able to pick up the missing parts previously transported to Rio de Janeiro and the Avro was not used at the Pole.
Data fromAvro Aircraft since 1908 [8]
General characteristics
Performance
The Avro Andover was a 1920s British military transport aircraft built by Avro for the Royal Air Force. Four aircraft were built, in two versions. Three aircraft, the Type 561, were used as flying ambulances. The sole example of the Type 563 was used as a 12-seater transport.
The Avro 549 Aldershot was a British single-engined bomber aircraft built by Avro.
The Avro 566 Avenger was a prototype British fighter of the 1920s, designed and built by Avro. It was a single-seat, single-engine biplane of wood and fabric construction. Although it was a streamlined and advanced design, it never entered production.
The Avro Avian was a series of British light aircraft designed and built by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s. While the various versions of the Avian were sound aircraft, they were comprehensively outsold by the de Havilland Moth and its descendants.
The Avro Cadet was a single-engined British biplane trainer designed and built by Avro in the 1930s as a smaller development of the Avro Tutor for civil use.
The Avro 558 was a British single-engined ultralight biplane built by Avro at Hamble Aerodrome.
The Avro 560 was a British single-engined ultralight monoplane built by Avro at Hamble Aerodrome.
The Avro Club Cadet was a 1930s single-engined British biplane trainer aircraft, designed and built by Avro as a development of the earlier Cadet. It was planned for private and club use and, unlike the Cadet, was fitted with folding wings.
The Avro 571 Buffalo was a prototype British carrier-based torpedo bomber biplane, designed and built by Avro in the 1920s. It was not selected for service, the Blackburn Ripon being ordered instead.
The Roe I Biplane was the first powered aircraft to be designed, built, and flown in England. Designed in an attempt to claim a prize offered by the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club, it was designed and built by Alliott Verdon Roe, who based it on a powered model with which he had won a Daily Mail prize of £75 at Alexandra Palace in April 1907. This prize was substantially larger: the club committee was offering £2,500 for the first person to fly a circuit of their three-mile (4.8 km) race track by the end of the year. In addition the Daily Graphic was offering a £1,000 prize for a flight of more than a mile (1.6 km).
The Avro Type D was an aircraft built in 1911 by the pioneer British aircraft designer A.V. Roe. Roe had previously built and flown several aircraft at Brooklands, most being tractor layout triplanes. The Type D was his first biplane.
The Avro Type E, Type 500, and Type 502 made up a family of early British military aircraft, regarded by Alliott Verdon Roe as his firm's first truly successful design. It was a forerunner of the Avro 504, one of the outstanding aircraft of the First World War.
The Avro 519 was a British bomber aircraft of the First World War, a development of the Avro 510 seaplane. They were two-bay biplanes of conventional configuration with greatly uneven span. Two single-seat examples, powered by a single 150 hp (110 kW) Sunbeam water-cooled engine, were ordered by the RNAS in early 1916. This was soon followed by orders for two modified aircraft for the Royal Flying Corps. These were fitted with seats for a crew of two and had more powerful (225 hp/168 kW) Sunbeam engines
The Cierva C.8 was an experimental autogyro built by Juan de la Cierva in England in 1926 in association with Avro. Like Cierva's earlier autogyros, the C.8s were based on existing fixed-wing aircraft fuselages – in this case, the Avro 552.
The Avro 539 was a British single-seat racing biplane built by Avro for the 1919 Schneider Trophy.
The Avro 533 Manchester was a First World War-era twin-engine biplane photo-reconnaissance and bomber aircraft designed and manufactured by Avro.
The Avro 562 Avis was a two-seat light biplane designed and built by the A.V.Roe and Company Limited at Hamble for the 1924 Lympne Light Aeroplane Trials.
The Avro 508 was a prototype British reconnaissance aircraft of the 1910s.
The Bristol Babe was a British-built light single-seat biplane, intended for the private flyer and produced immediately after the First World War. Only two flew.
The Avro 528 was an unsuccessful large span single-engined biplane built to an Admiralty contract in 1916. It carried a crew of two; only one was built.
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Avro Baby . |