There is something proportionally humorous about an airplane that you are taller standing next to than when you’re sitting in the cockpit. Your basic “I’m going to trust my life to your wings, if I don’t trip over them first” incongruity. Yet some of the smallest aircraft have the potential to be the most endearing. The first few that come to mind are the Cassutt Racer, the Flying Flea, the Hawk 6 and Mew Gull (if you love diving into the history of rare British/European aircraft) or in this case the Baby Lakes.
Better known as the Oldfield Baby Great Lakes, it was designed and first built by Barney Oldfield in the 1950s as a scaled-down homebuilder variation of the Great Lakes Sport Trainer. Oldfield had no relation to the Great Lakes Aircraft Company, he just liked the appearance and called it Baby or Midget.
After flying it a while, he sold it—only to get it back after it was damaged. Around that time, he enlisted his friend Richard “Dick” Lane to help with the reconstruction. There were various names that sprung up associated with it as well as different variations. These became known as the Baby Lakes, Oldfield Baby Lakes, Baby Great Lakes, Super Baby Great Lakes (accommodating larger engines) and the Buddy Baby Lakes (a two-seat variation designed by Dick Lane).
The Baby Great Lakes is constructed with 136 feet of steel tubing for the fuselage, with wood spars and ribs and everything fabric covered. Engine choices started with a Continental A-65, but options range up to the C-90 or VW engines. Of course the design criteria of minimal supplies, small engine and limited special construction or flying skills meant that it was a foregone conclusion that the final product would be, um, small. After all, it’s not called a Baby for nothing.
A New Home
Oldfield passed away in 1970. Just before his death, Harvey Swack joined the team, ultimately acquiring the design. The rights subsequently were transferred to Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Company in 1996, which still sells plans and materials packages for the design.
The original Baby Great Lakes was envisioned to be a fun and safe airplane to fly. It is designed to withstand +/- 9 G’s when it is built according to plans and within the design’s weight limits. It uses the M6 airfoil, which is the same one as the Pitts S1C. For comparison, the Great Lakes Sport Trainer used the M12 airfoil. The original Baby Great Lakes had an A-80 Continental engine. The plans from the 1970s recommended that the Baby Great Lakes be powered by a 65- to 85-hp engine. The Volkswagen engine was not recommended by Harvey Swack because of the small prop and less thrust, though several builders have successfully installed and flown behind them.
The Super Baby Lakes was set up with longer landing gear and a larger engine. It’s been flown with a 100-plus-hp engine, in the ballpark of an O-200 Continental or either of the O-235 or O-290 Lycomings.
Bell’s Baby
All of this background brings us to the Baby captured in the accompanying images. This particular Baby is owned by Shad Bell, who acquired it in 2011 as an unfinished project. It was originally started in the mid-1980s. After various starts and stops, it had been assembled and fabric covered up through the silver coating. Over the next five years he brought it together and got it flying. His first flight was in 2016 and he’s been tinkering on it ever since. The open cockpit flying season in central Ohio falls between April and October, allowing sufficient off-season downtime to tweak various modifications and improvements.
Shad is an A&P mechanic, originally working for Regional Jet and now for Challenger as a maintenance technician. Right now, aside from maintaining his flying aircraft, he has an ongoing Wittman Tailwind project. Previously he built a Corvair-powered Pietenpol. He comes from a long line of aircraft builders. His grandfather built a Spezio Tuholer and his father started a Cassutt project. His father constructed the Cassutt wings after he returned from Vietnam and his grandfather completed the fuselage. The wings and fuselage are still hanging in their hangar with the eventual goal of completing it someday.
As the Baby Lakes got close to flying, there were questions as to how Shad should finish it. He already had some leftover red and yellow paint, which his 5-year-old son declared to be “Lightning McQueen colors,” from the Disney/Pixar movie Cars. Given its overall toy-like appearance it was a natural conclusion and the paint scheme was born. Continuing the theme were the “Ka-Chow!” and lightning-bolt accents. But the true pièce de résistance is the Sky Slicer stickers on the propeller. For those not in the know, this is a nod to the Disney/Pixar Planes movie franchise, after the villain Ripslinger’s Sky Slicer Mark V prop. Children love this diminutive “Disney characters come to life” at airshows and can’t get enough of it.
Gear Changes
Over the last several long winters, modifications were made to extend the gear legs and Shad created a locking tailwheel. The tailwheel setup allowed for more clearance as well as improved handling. Never one to waste anything, Shad crafted the locking lever from a worn-out gear latch from a Learjet.
Originally this Baby was powered by an A-65, with 8:1 pistons, which had it cruising around at around 85 mph for its first 160 hours of flight time. The engine was then upgraded to an A-85 from another Baby Lakes, which significantly increased the performance. However, this modification revealed a previously unknown issue. The A-65 has CHT sensors on the top plugs only. With the A-85 engine, the CHT sensors were relocated to the bottom of the cylinders, which ultimately revealed a cooling issue. Of course more modifications were required and improvements in the cooling features resulted in CHT numbers dropping from 425° F down to 350°. With the larger engine, cruise speeds increased to 105-110 mph. This is about 10 mph slower than other comparable Baby Lakes.
Future winter projects include changing out the prop to tweak its performance—a new prop from Culver Props is in the works. But rest assured, it will be another Sky Slicer.
From a prior interview with Harvey Swack it was related that one of the reasons the airplane has such short gear is that its ground angle is several degrees short of the stall angle. So it needs to be flown onto the ground. That makes it look pretty flat on the ground unless the gear is extended, as Shad has done with this example. Improving the gear legs by adding 4 inches was done in this case purely for aesthetics. However, it brings the ground angle closer to stall and theoretically should improve landing characteristics in ground effect. Shad hasn’t really noticed much difference, though it does bounce “like a pogo stick with springs” unless he touches down smoothly.
Small But Average
The cockpit has a surprisingly reasonable amount of room for an average-sized pilot, although if you’re thinking that this is a plane more suited to be flown by midgets, it’s certainly understandable. It does become difficult to squeeze a pilot and any type of parachute into the cockpit. Once in the aircraft, you are looking up at the people standing next to you. Taxiing around, one is aware just how close your tush is to the ground sliding by a few inches below you.
Taking off, the P-factor is more pronounced than expected and picking up the tail requires some caution as there isn’t a great deal of prop clearance. It does take off after a short ground roll and climbs easily. The ideal Vy speed, per the plans, is around 75 mph and can generate climb rates upward of 2000 fpm, depending on engine choice and propeller pitch. Lightning McQueen climbs best around 80 mph at 800 fpm, which is a bit shy of the published numbers but pretty respectable on the few ponies under the cowl. Shad did have this Baby up to 10,000 feet. Once. It took an unreasonable 37 minutes to climb all the way up there!
Other Baby Lakes have had pilots complaining about how the slipstream coming off the top wing beats the pilot’s head around. Shad reports that he doesn’t experience this in his aircraft. He attributes that to the windshield being set at a good angle and height to protect the occupant. Even so, it’s not perfect. The overall design was intended for aerobatics—or at least gentleman’s aerobatics. Ultimately the airframe is stressed for +/- 9 G’s, but this airplane doesn’t have inverted fuel and oil, so with any negative loading fuel gushes out of the fuel tank. Apparently, the windshield is just high enough to send a stream of fuel straight into the pilot’s forehead. As you can imagine maneuvers are limited to positive G forces only.
By most accounts, the Baby Lakes performs creditable aerobatics. All of the normal stuff, such as rolls and loops, are relatively easy and smooth, if not as good-looking. Per Shad’s report, it tends to be sensitive in pitch and yaw, but a bit heavy in roll. Overall, he wishes it had a bit more in its roll rate and that the control harmony was a bit more balanced.
Even though the stall does tend to have very little warning buffet, it recovers the second back pressure is released. It stalls around 50 mph and overall the stall characteristics are benign without a wing drop. It is an airframe with a lot of drag. Without power it glides “like a streamlined crowbar.” Shad considered adding additional fairings but isn’t sure it’s worth the effort.
Your Carnival Ride
Flying a plane that seems disproportionate for the average-sized person means that the pilot looks like they are sticking out of a carnival ride. While it does look odd, it does mean that there is great visibility. You can see over the top of the upper wing, especially in turns. On landing it is straightforward to see the runway in the pattern, as the pilot is seated behind the lower wing. Shad flies final around 100 mph and generally stops in about 800 feet.
The Baby Lakes is consistently described as being forgiving and easy to fly. On the negative side, however, it doesn’t have much room to carry baggage. Specifically with this one: Shad says while it is very fun to fly, it isn’t very comfortable for long flights. It has a 12-gallon tank, so he plans on 1.5-hour legs leaving a 30-minute fuel reserve at his destination. By that time he’s ready to get out and stretch!
In a perfect world he would only change two things in its construction: First, he wishes it was a little lighter, especially as its performance tends to be a bit less than other examples. The only other thing he would consider modifying is the overly tight shrouding of the engine. It tends to make maintenance difficult due to the work involved in removing and reinstalling the cowl.
You could say that about a lot of homebuilts, though. At the end of the day, the Baby Lakes is a pint-sized, affordable homebuilt that epitomizes the joy of flight as if Dusty Crophopper had come to life. If you build one, your kids will love it.
