Everybody has a hobby, and for some, it involves building airplanes in their garage.
Ray Stits and Robert Starr were two such people who drew upon their knowledge of fixing and flying
aircraft in the military to become pioneers in the world of homebuilt aircraft. Along the way,
they created some of the smallest aircraft ever built, aircraft that look more like
go-carts than flying machines. Like many great stories, this one started with a bet.
"It was at Kellogg Field in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the summer of 1948.
Ray Stits was repairing an aircraft at the Battle Creek Flying School and talking shop with his
buddies when he asked a rhetorical question. "‘If I was to build an aircraft with a 10-foot
wingspan and a 10-foot, fuselage, would it be the world’s smallest airplane?’" Stits said.
"One self-proclaimed aviation expert said, "Stits, you can’t do it! ", and that was all the
incentive he needed to finally start an aircraft project he had long thought about building."
The race for the world’s smallest airplane record started with Ray Stits' desire to design an
airplane smaller than Steve Wittman's DFA Midget Racer, which was previously the smallest airplane.
His first design was the SA1A Junior, which featured a wingspan of 8 ft 10 inches
and a 40 hp engine from an Aeronca. The flight characteristics were terrible; heavy wing loading,
poor handling, and stall characteristics. You don’t want to fly on this plane.
Junior was too small for Stits to fly. Luckily, he found someone who could fit
in the 15-inch-wide cockpit, but the plane crashed after rising 10 feet off the ground.
Not to be discouraged, Stits switched the power plant to a 65 hp Continental engine, shortened
the wings to 8 ft, and attached tip gates to generate more lift and better aileron control.
In 1952, Robert Star, a former P51 pilot, joined the program, and they built a plane
even smaller than the Stits Junior. They called it the Sky Baby. The Sky Baby has a wingspan of
2 meters and is 3 meters long, with conventional landing gear. The fuselage is constructed
of welded steel tubing with aircraft fabric covering. It’s a two-bay bi-plane, meaning it has
double wings. The upper wing houses the flaps, while the lower wing houses the ailerons.
Most aircraft use a flat firewall between the engine and the pilot's feet, but the Skybaby is
configured with the pilot sitting with the engine close to his lap (Honestly, I don’t know what that
must have felt like, but I know I wouldn’t want an engine between my laps or anything close to my
factory haha). There were specific requirements for this plane-one of those was that its pilot
must weigh 77 kg to guarantee that gravity was kept in the right place. In addition, since the
small engine is modified to produce 112 hp, in order to land safely without the engine stalling,
the approach speed must be maintained at 125 mph, or 108 knots, when approaching the runway.
The "Bky baby" earned the Guinness World Record for the world’s smallest plane in 1952.
The last time I checked, the plane was being stored at the Boeing aviation hangar in Virginia,
so you need to get there if you want to see it in person.
The Sky Baby was Stit's last attempt to build the smallest aircraft in the world.
But Starr was unhappy because he felt he had not received proper credit for
his help building the Junior and the Sky Baby. He wanted the record for himself,
so he built the Bumble Bee 1. With a wingspan as small as 2 meters,
the plane claimed the Guinness World Record immediately as the smallest plane ever built.
That same year, Ray Stits’ son, Donald Stits said "NO NO, I want that record back," so he went on to
build the Stits Baby Bird, a high-wing monoplane that was completely different from anything that
ever existed. The experimental creation had a tubular fuselage construction, while its wing was
made from wood. The Baby Bird was a success; it performed as many as 34 flights before retiring.
But Robert Starr didn’t want to lose the title to the Stits, so he went and designed the Bumblebee
2. The design of the Bumble Bee II is similar to that of the "Bumble Bee I" except the Bumble
Bee II is smaller and lighter. The fuselage of the Bumble Bee II was constructed of welded
steel tubing with sheet metal covering, while the wings were covered in aircraft plywood.
The power plant was a Continental C85 4-cylinder engine that produced 85 hp.
The upper wings had flaps, and the lower wings had ailerons.
All wing airframe structures were equipped with tip plates to enhance the lift coefficient.
The airplane had a small cockpit with the rudder pedals located under the engine
compartment toward the front of the cowling. The max speed of the plane was 130 knots,
and this little bee could soar to the skies, climbing. 4,500 feet per minute.
The smallest twin-engine airplane is the Colomban Cri-cri. Designed in the early 70s
by French aeronautical engineer Michel Colomban, He wanted to design a small airplane that people
could assemble at home with less than $1,000, including the engines, which is about $5000 in
today’s dollars. Colomban designed the kit to be simple, easy to build and fly, and the closeness
of the two engines to each other at the centerline means that it could be flown by pilots only
qualified to fly single-engine aircraft, because even with a complete failure of one engine,
with hands and feet off the controls, the only effect would be a gentle turn. The cockpit canopy
was carefully designed to direct effective airflow over the tail surfaces in this situation.
He not only designed it to be easy to build, but also easy to disassemble for those that want to
store it in a garage and tow it on a trailer. It’s so easy to assemble and disassemble that
it can be done in under 6 minutes. The Cri-Cri features a cantilever low-wing, a single-seat
enclosed cockpit, fixed tricycle landing gear, and twin engines mounted on pylons at the nose of the
aircraft in tractor configuration. It is made from aluminum sheets glued to Klegecell foam.
Its wingspan is just 4.9 meters, with a length of just 3.9 meters, and it is capable of aerobatics
within the limitations of twin-engine aircraft. It was powered by two 9hp Rowena two-stroke engines,
which helped the plane achieve a cruise speed of 108 knots, or about 124 miles per hour.
And that was on an airplane that weighed about 175 pounds and could lift a maximum of 200 pounds.
In some of the later models, the I.C engines were replaced with electric engines,
which made the CRI-CRI eco-friendly. Currently, the existing Cri-Cri planes have often been
modified by their builders, departing from the original design to varying degrees,
resulting in varying performances. Most versions can climb with one engine inoperative.
The smallest helicopter in the world is the Innovator Mosquito Air. It was introduced
by Innovator Technologies of Canada to be the cheapest and easiest helicopter to fly,
and it is supplied as a kit for amateur construction.
The Mosquito Air was specifically designed to be simple, but intelligent and reliable, and also
comply with the U.S. F.A.R. PART 103 Ultra-light Category rules, including the category's maximum
empty weight of 254 lbs, meaning that you don’t need a pilot license to fly it.
It is powered by a 2-cycle 64hp piston engine, featuring a single main rotor and tail rotor,
a single-seat open cockpit without a windshield, and skid landing gear. The best thing is that the
Mosquito offers an advantageous power-to-weight ratio, a compact size, and easy manoeuvrability,
allowing the user to fly as close to home as possible. It cruises at 60mph, climbs at 790
feet per minute, and has a range of 70 miles, making it perfect for sightseeing flights around
your community. This is a true helicopter in every sense of the word, despite its very basic design.
The open design means that the pilot is in maximum contact with the air,
which is often reported to be a great experience.
The entire kit for the Mosquito can be purchased for $20,000. Building the kits will take you about
200 to 300 hours, or you can have the plane built for you for a flat $4000. Getting airborne for
under $20,000 in your new helicopter is quite a feat – we’re not aware of any other helicopter
in this price category, and on top of that, it offers very low maintenance and operating costs.
The smallest jet in the world is the Bede BD-5 Micro. Work on the BD5 started in the 70s,
when Jim Bede wanted to build something radial after seeing the Schleicher ASW 15 and was
inspired by it. The Micro was a radical design. It is an extremely small, one-seat design that looks
like a fighter jet, with the pilot sitting in a semi-reclined position under a large fighter-like
canopy. To reduce drag, Bede designed this plane to feature a V-tail and retractable landing gear.
The result was that drag was so low that the plane needed split flaps and spoilers on the wing
in order to improve deceleration for landing. This was apparently the first application of
spoilers on a light aircraft. The low drag implied excellent performance; with the 40 hp engine, it
reached "nearly" 200 miles per hour, with a range of 1,200 miles. In addition to being fast and
easy to fly, the BD-5 was also easy to build and maintain. The fuselage was constructed primarily
from fiberglass panels over an aluminum frame, reducing construction time to only a few hundred
hours. Although the early designs required some welding in the landing gear area, it was planned
that this would be removed in the kit versions, so construction would require no special tooling
or skills. Even so, the cost of operation would be extremely low, offering fuel efficiency of 38 mpg.
With the wings removed, the aircraft could be packed into a small custom trailer, allowing it to
be towed away by car for storage in a garage, and from there to any suitable flat area for take-off.