Ray_Stits_A_Man_and_His


	I was often advised by pilots around the airport to recruit another pilot to fly Junior, and Bill Haddock, weighing about 170 pounds, asked to take it out and make taxi runs. He was soon lifting off, flying down the runway, and landing with no problem. I then called a CAA Representative in Grand Rapids, and asked him to observe the flights to give us an Experimental Airworthiness Certificate. Bill demonstrated Junior to the CAA, and we received our Airworthiness Certificate, but he was unable to travel and fly Junior in airshows due to the demands of his busy crop dusting and spraying business. An airport friend, Norm Walker, said he knew a 170- pound pilot who might be willing to fly the Junior at airshows, and a few days later Bob Starr showed up at the airport. After a pre- flight briefing, he climbed in, flew it around the pattern, and made several landings. We agreed that he would fly it as an airshow act called “The World’ s Smallest Aircraft” and we’d split the pay 50/50. In January 1950 Junior flew in a big airshow called the Miami All Amer- ican Air Maneuvers at Opa Locka, Florida, which resulted in worldwide publicity, and many requests for blueprints to build a duplicate of the Junior. This indicated a ready market for blueprints, and possibly a kit for a slightly larger sport airplane, so in summer 1950 I started laying out the basic design for thei


	proposed new aircraft. We did airshows within 400 miles of Battle Creek, pulling Junior on a trailer and doing flight demonstrations for magazines. Bert Fox, owner of the Flying School, also flew Junior in formation with Bill Haddock in his AT -10 for aerial photos. That summer I tried to negotiate a lease on a vacant 60-ft. by 60-ft. hangar with a basement and furnace that Mr. Kellogg built for his aircraft in the 1930s. I’d wanted to continue my maintenance and repair business through the winter and build the new sport plane, but as cold weather approached, I finally got the message that the Airport Board didn’t want competition with another aircraft repair shop operator who was very well connected in city politics. I decided to move back to my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, where winter weather and politics were not major obstacles to aircraft operations. Bob Starr sold his Crop Dusting Business and also moved to Phoenix to fly the Junior at airshows throughout the west. During my travels with the 8’ 10”-wingspan airplane on a trailer, I was often stopped by the Highway Patrol or Sheriff who’d read about Junior and just wanted to see the airplane up close. (Its wingspan was wider than the maximum allowed for trailering in every state, but the over width was never mentioned.) In Phoenix I took a job rebuilding a crashed Johnson Rocket, and Junior flew in several local air shows making more flight demonstrations for the press. When the Rocket was finished I went to Tucson and worked at Grand Central Aircraft returning mothballed B-29s to flight status. Bob Starr also moved to Tucson, worked at Grand Central, and continued his demonstration flights for the magazines. By the time I moved to Tucson, the new Sport Plane design work was complete.

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FRASER AERO TECHNOLOGY COMPANY

Ray Stits: A Man and His Aircraft - The Real Story of the Ray Stits
Junior and Sky Baby aircraft as told by Ray Stits himself.

Ray Stits: A Man and His
Aircraft - The Real Story
(Although aviation magazines in the
1950s sometimes reported that
handling the Stits Junior and Sky
Baby was difficult, in the hands of a
competent pilot, they were easy
airplanes to fly. Here, for the first
time, is the true story of the
development of these unique designs
as told first-hand by the aviation
pioneer who created them, Ray Stits.
– Mike Machat)

While working at Kellog Field in Battle
Creek, Michigan in summer 1948, I
maintained Battle Creek Flying
School aircraft and performed repairs
and modifications on a wide range of
other airplanes. During a Saturday
morning bull session” at the school,
the subject of very small aircraft came
up, and the question was raised:
“What was the smallest airplane that
anyone knew of that flew
successfully?”
Someone mentioned a 13-foot
wingspan racer built by Steve
Whitman, the Tandem Wing Flying
Flea, and other designs. After
everyone offered their opinion, I
asked a rhetorical question: If I was to
build an aircraft with a 10- foot 10-
inch wingspan, and a 10-foot 10-inch
fuselage, would it be the “World’s
Smallest Airplane?” One self
proclaimed aviation expert said, “Stits,
you can't do it!” and that was all the
incentive I needed to finally start an
aircraft project I’d long thought about
building.
I found that the most suitable engine
available was an Aeronca, two-
cylinder, horizontally opposed, E 13C,
single-ignition powerplant rated at 40
horsepower. I decided the airplane
would be low wing, and to keep the
wing loading low I needed a
lightweight pilot as well. A small 120-
pound pilot volunteered for the job, so
I designed the center of gravity for a
120-lb. pilot sitting in a 15-inch-wide
cockpit.


That airplane was named the Stits Junior. I built it in 90 days, and made fast taxi tests to check the engine and directional control with a three-inch tail wheel, but my 200-pound weight prevented me from lifting the tail to check rudder control. The airplane was ready for a test flight the day before Thanksgiving 1948, and the pilot, who shall remain nameless, lifted off after a short run and successfully flew down the runway about ten feet in the air. In the flare, however, he over-controlled and dropped it in breaking the landing gear and prop. During repairs, I installed a 65-HP Continental engine because there was too much engine vibration with no shock-absorbing mounts as used on the Aeronca engine when mounted in a very light airplane. The heavier engine moved the center of' gravity forward raising the maximum pilot weight to 170 pounds, but this required a 35-pound sack of small rocks to be put in the seat as ballast to prevent nosing over when the pilot stepped out. I didn’t want to move the landing gear forward because it was in the right location with the pilot seated. The second and third flights at about ten feet above the runway were successful, but the fourth flight at about 50 feet ended in a high flair and a second crash landing. The pilot suggested that more rudder area was needed for better directional control when the tail wheel was off the runway, so I added six inches to the rudder, which increased overall length to 11’ 4.” Repairs were made and the fifth test flight around the airport lasted about 15 minutes, but again ended with a high flair and third crash landing. While repairing the damage this time, I removed the wingtip bows and added end plates to give more lift and provide greater aileron response. This reduced the wingspan to 8’ 10”.

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The following article was taken from "The Leading Edge" newsletter, Feb.
2012 edition from EAA Chapter 1000. A thank you for permission to publish
this article here goes to Russ Erb of EAA Chapter 1000.

I started to collect materials to build
the aircraft I named the Playboy, and
found that aircraft-quality materials,
such as 4130 Chromalloy tubing,
aircraft-grade spruce, plywood, and
hardware, all had to be shipped from
Los Angeles on special order
because there were no aircraft
material distributors in Tucson. It
became obvious that if I was going to
build airplanes, I needed to move
closer to the source of materials.
I began researching suitable
locations in California, wanting to
locate on a main shipping route, but
not too close to big city congestion.
Riverside had a population of 54,000
people with all the main chain stores,
and was on a major highway and rail
line 50 miles from Los Angeles. In
February 1951 Bob and I drove to
Riverside to check it out, and went to
a private airport called Arlington
Riverside (now Riverside Municipal)
where there was just one hangar and
the atmosphere wasn’t very friendly.
We went to another private airport
across the river called West
Riverside, and found a much
friendlier environment. This airport
had four hangars and a small cement-
block office building, and I was
offered a vacant hangar for $15-per-
month, so I took it. We went back to
Tucson, gave notice at Grand
Central Aircraft, and on March 1,
1951, the Junior was hangared at
West Riverside, later named Flabob
Airport, a contraction of the first
names of its two owners.
During our airshow travels I learned
that Arnold Cole, a former member of
the famous Cole Brothers Air Show,
was living in Riverside. He was Vice
President of Pacific Air Races, and
was well-involved in the airshow
business. I contacted him and made
arrangements to meet at the airport
to demonstrate Junior in anticipation
of adding it to his airshow program.
The visibility that day was about a
mile in fog. Bob took off and made
the usual

high-speed pass upwind over the runway, but then carburetor ice formed and the engine lost about 50-percent power by the time he was turning downwind. He couldn't maintain altitude and set it down in a soft field between parallel irrigation channels, but while rolling out, drifted into a channel border and ground looped, damaging the wings, tail, and landing gear. With airshow income now eliminated, Bob and I went to Pacific Airmotive Corp. in Chino where C-54 Skymasters were being overhauled for the military, and I hired on to the night shift so I could work on my own projects during daylight hours. Rather than rebuild Junior for the fourth time, I decided to postpone construction of the long-planned Playboy and build an even smaller airplane, but this time, a biplane for airshow work. To reduce the distance the pilot sits aft of the wing center-of-lift, as with the Junior, I moved the seat forward with the rudder pedals on each side of the well-baffled carburetor. I also decided to avoid a repeat of the carburetor icing problem by installing a second engine primer to inject isopropyl alcohol into the carburetor air box to melt any ice. After two months of design work, I was ready to start building what I named the Sky Baby, and Bob agreed to furnish the Continental engine, assist on the project, and fly the airplane in airshows, again for half of the pay. I designed the CG to accommodate my own weight and planned to do all the flight testing myself. It had long been my policy to test fly each aircraft I made major repairs or modifications to, and by 1950 I’d flown every military war surplus primary, basic, and advanced trainer. However, I hadn’t earned a Commercial Pilot Certificate which was required for a pilot to be paid for flying in airshows. We went to Jack Hardwick Aircraft in El Monte, and Bob bought a run-out C85-8 Continental for $400. During overhaul,

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I upgraded it to the Continental
Racing Engine specifications which
were rated at 112 HP at 3600 RPM.
Having shared work experience, I
kept track of Bob’s time spent on the
project. Total time was 127 hours
during the first four months of the
project, which took me thirteen
months to finish. The landing gear
was built with 4-inch wide
by 3/8-inch thick leaf spring for the
nose gear and main gear, and during
my high-speed taxi tests the leaf
spring on the steerable nose gear,
positioned 18 inches forward of the
main gear, would twist, causing a
steering problem.
A big airshow was advertised in
Detroit, and I wanted to finish the
airplane in time, so rather than
redesigning and building a new nose
gear, I installed a seven pound tail
wheel and spring assembly, and
removed the 18-pound nose gear
assembly. The main gear was moved
forward, and this major weight shift
reduced the maximum pilot weight to
170 pounds to stay within aft CG
limits, eliminating me from flying the
airplane.
(Editor’s Note: A current website
shows photos of the Sky Baby with a
caption reading: “The designer didn’t
even trust his own extensive flying
skills enough to fly the airplane. A
veteran pilot named Bob Star (sic)
flew the airplane and managed
speeds over 200 miles per hour.”
Quotes like this are how such
misconceptions are spread.)
Except for the final color coat, the
Sky Baby was finished, so we took it
to Chino Airport to perform high
speed taxi tests and liftoffs. I then
called Roy Outcen, the CAA
representative at Ontario, to ask him
to observe our flying, and Sky Baby
was issued an Experimental
Airworthiness Certificate on June 25,
1952.

After all the flying and CAA
demonstrations we did at Chino, we
took the Sky Baby to Palm Springs to
make the first public flight
demonstration for the newspapers
and magazines. After receiving good
press coverage, I got many calls for
demonstration flights, but postponed
any further flying until the red-and-
white sunburst color coats were
finished. We then spent almost every
Saturday at Chino performing flight
demonstrations for various
magazines and movie newsreels.
I contacted the airshow management
in Detroit and got a contract for Sky
Baby to fly at the big three-day show
there. After that show, all the
magazines had their stories written
and requests for demonstration
flights ended, so I decided to retire
Sky Baby and start on the long-
planned Playboy project which was
the main reason I left Michigan.
Lester Cole, a former member of the
famous Cole Brothers Air Show, had
asked to fly Sky Baby. He’d never
flown anything smaller than a clipped-
wing J-3 Cub. A few
days before I removed Bob's engine
from Sky Baby, Lester Cole, Arnold
Cole and I took it to Chino. Lester,
weighing about 170 pounds, flew it
around the pattern reporting no
unusual characteristics. Sky Baby
was retired in October 1952 with
about 25 hours total flying time, and
was later donated to the Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum.
The airplane is currently on loan to
the EAA Museum at Oshkosh,
Wisconsin.


The Stits Junior accumulated about 55 hours of flying time, and its damaged structure was eventually scrapped. Contrary to exaggerated magazine stories giving the false impression that only very skilled pilots could fly Sky Baby and Junior, they were not very difficult to fly. Being short airplanes, directional control on the ground required a little more attention than did longer airplanes, but any competent pilot could easily fly them, with pilot weight being the only limitation. The key word here is "competent." In 1955 I received a letter from a publisher’s representative in New York advising me of a new publication called The Guinness Book of World Records, saying I was listed in it, and asking me to buy a copy. After the book was in circulation, other people built small airplanes to claim the title of “World’s Smallest.” Some crashed after climbing out of ground effect, and one claimed to have made it around the pattern once, but as of this date, none have been repeatedly demonstrated at air shows or other large public gatherings, as were the Sky Baby and Junior. It is my opinion that Sky Baby (7’ 2” span; 9’ 10” length), and Junior (8” 10” span; 11’ 4” length), are the world’ s smallest successful biplane and monoplane. "Successful" means having flown routinely without any accidents or damage caused by design defects. Webster’s Dictionary defines an aircraft as "any structure or machine designed to travel through the air.” Therefore, by definition, any structure or machine claimed to be an "aircraft" doesn't actually have to fly, and can claim that title just by sitting in a hangar or museum with a sign on it. It is also my opinion that anyone who has the courage and ambition to design and build an airplane, whether it flies successfully or not, deserves a lot of credit for his or her efforts. - Ray Stits

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