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Okay, I admit to having thoroughly over-researched this! There's a lot of confusion and mistruths out there about Jack Baumann and his aircraft designs. I've done my best to untangle things but there are plenty of gaps in Baumann's career that need to be filled. Hopefully, this will be of interest to some. I have broken it down into section. If you are just here for the (admittedly brief) designation sequences, you may want to skip down ...
Jack B. Baumann Aircraft Designs
Jack Boyer Baumann (1914-1996) was born in Knoxville and went to the University of Tennessee to study engineering. I am sketchy on his earliest designs but I believe that he had a hand in both the Lacy-Baumann glider (NC11539) and the Velie radial-powered Baumann-Minsky B (NC18151) ... since both have connections with Knoxville and the latter was owned by a "J Baumann". (Some details on these designs would be appreciated if any members know more.)
What's in a Name? "... Jack is a notorious domesticity for John!"
Jack Baumann's name causes some confusion. "Jack B. Baumann" is the name which appears on the one aviation patent of his that I've found. Flying Magazine (June 1950, pg. 56) names him as "John B. Baumann" but I've found no evidence to suggest that Jack was a short form for 'John' in Baumann's case.
(Just to cover other possible confusions, the now-defunct Baumann Floats, LLC was founded by Bud Baumann - no relationship to Jack. Likewise, Jack Baumann Field in Rio Vista, CA, has no connection to J.B. Baumann. In 1995, Rio Vista Municipal Airport was named Jack Baumann Field to honour a local businessman and avid pilot, John Henry Baumann. J.H. Baumann had been a USAAF bomber pilot during WW2 and Baumann Road neighbouring the airport was also named after him.)
On Aerofiles, the late, great K.O. Eckland said of the biplane BT-120 Aerobat that Jack Baumann "resurrected the design as the post-war Baumann Brigadier". Not true, of course (just an inevitable artifact of maintaining a huge, complex website). Other confusions surround the fate of the third BT-120 airframe. As some sources claim, the aircraft was eventually assembled by amateurs from stored components found after WW2. Another story claims that the third BT-120 was completed as a wingless 'ice boat'. I favour the postwar construction from parts - parts of the third BT-120 airframe certainly was used for ice boat racing on frozen-over Green Bay ... but not until the Winter of 1995. [1]
There are also a number of widely-spread myths out there about Baumann's connections with the Piper Apache ... which I will address further on.
Baumann Aircraft Designations and Corporate Entities
While working at Taylor-Young Airplane Company ('Taylorcraft' in Alliance, OH) Jack Baumann designed a small cabin biplane for personal use. The B-65 two-seater cabin biplane flew in 1938. That airframe was re-engined as the B-90 before Baumann moved on to an enlarged design. To market his 4-seat B-100 cabin biplane, the Baumann Aircraft Corp. was founded in 1938 with Jack as President. This tiny firm oversaw the higher-powered B-120 cabin biplane and the early stages of its open-cockpit, tandem-seat trainer derivative - the BT-120.
As will already be obvious Jack Baumann's designs were designated "B" followed by the type's total engine horsepower. AFAIK, only nine Baumann 'B' designations were assigned - this includes two re-engined airframes (four if the B-290 and unbuilt B-360 are regarded as re-engined B-250 derivatives). Of course, if forum members are aware of other Baumann designs - 'B' designations or not - I would be thrilled to hear about them.
The sole exception within Jack Baumann's 'B' designation series was the BT-120 Aerobat. This was because the BT-120 had exactly the same horsepower as the preceding B-120 cabin aircraft. To skirt the problem, Baumann simply added 'T' for Trainer to his designation prefix. Construction of the BT-120 trainer began at Knoxville in the summer of 1940 - which would prove to be a busy year for Baumann.
In early 1940, civic officials from Menominee, MI contacted Baumann Aircraft Corp. They were offering incentives to move the firm to a new airport to be constructed in their county (the Menominee County Airport being a national defence project under the Michigan Works Project Administration.) In June 1940, Jack Baumann visited Menominee, accompanied by his young assistant (and first cousin), Billy F. Baumann. The county of Menominee was offering space and even to funding materials needed to begin BT-120 contruction. A deal was struck and Baumann began arrangements to move his operation from Tennessee to Michigan.
The BT-120 Aerobat was aimed at the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) started in 1938. However, the small size of the Baumann Aircraft Corp. argued against it getting any government contracts. As a result, the firm was reorganized along more professional lines. To increase the chances of a BT-120 sale, the Baumann Aircraft Corp. was superceded by the Mercury Aircraft Corp. [2] The role of President was taken over by businessman F.L. Bette, [3] Jack Baumann became Chief Engineer and shared the Vice presidency of the new company with its General Manager, R.D. 'Dick' Smith.
Jack Baumann and the Mercury Aircraft Corp.
With the new Mercury Aircraft Corp. established at Menominee, MI, the first BT-120 was test flown at Knoxville in late September 1940 ... although it did not receive its Type Certificate from the Civil Aeronautics Administration until August 1941. By then, the aircraft was in Menominee (having arrived in late February 1941 via Escanaba airport, 55 miles to the north). [4] On 11 March 1941, the local newspaper reported that the second BT-120 had been completed. [5] That sounds grander than it was - Mercury was building its airframes on the second floor of the Northern Hardware & Supply Co. building on Menominee's Main Street.
Parts for a third BT-120 airframe were finished in Menominee but these components were not assembled by Mercury Aircraft. [6] Alas, the CPTP was questioning whether is really required aerobatics training aircraft. The market for which the BT-120 had been created was disappearing. One of the three BT-120s was used for a short time to train CPTP pilots but no production order was forthcoming from the government. The writing was on the wall and Jack Baumann handed in his resignation. By late October, Mercury Aircraft had hired a new engineer [5] to replace Baumann but with no orders, funds quickly ran out. By November, Mercury was offering flying lessons to locals with the finished aircraft. It didn't help. By July 1942, Mercury Aircraft Corp. had closed (and the Menominee airport would not even be completed until late 1942 or early 1943).
Choosing Mercury as a company name may not have been very wise. A company with exactly the same name - Mercury Aircraft Corp - had failed in Fairfax, KS, back in 1932. There was still a Mercury Aircraft operating out of Hammondsport, NY. Originally, that name had been a trademark for the Aerial Service Corporation (formed in 1920 by former Curtiss personnel to support war-surplus JN-4 Jennys). [7] That firm's original designs now tend to be called 'Aerial Mercury' types to distinguish them from what came next. In early 1929, the firm rebranded itself as Mercury Aircraft Inc. to market its new Mercury Chic T-2 [8] and Mercury Kitten high-winged monoplanes. By the time Baumann adopted the Mercury name, the Hammondsport namesake was mainly a parts supplier to Curtiss. [9]
Of course, a poor choice of company names would have been a minor factor. Baumann's Mercury Aircraft Corp. represented a personnel expansion and moving operations 800 miles north. Menominee was a faltering lumber town and Mercury had to start night school courses to teach locals welding before they could even begin building BT-120 components. When the CPTP decided to drop its aerobatics trainer requirement, the game was over. Jack Baumann had seen it coming and taken a job with the Frankfort Sailplane Company in Joliet, Illinois under Stanley Corcoran. [10]
"Go West, young man, go West" - Jack B. Baumann in California
Jack Baumann didn't stay long with Frankfort Sailplane. Instead, he accepted a position with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation - moving to Burbank, CA, in January 1942. At this stage of the war, Lockheed Burbank built P-38 Lightnings at its Plant B-1 and licensed Boeing B-17s at Plant A-1. However, J.B. Baumann then seems to disappear without a trace for the duration of the war. I am at a completeloss as to what Jack did at Lockheed during WW2. There seems to be no mention whatever of Jack until he leaves Lockheed to develop his new aviation concepts. The new company - the Baumann Aircraft Corporation - was formed after the war's end in 1945.
The exact company name is worth noting - Baumann Aircraft Corporation [11] There are plenty of references to a 'Baumann Aircraft Company' - including in reminiscences by Jack's cousin and test pilot, Billy Baumann. However, the B-290 sales brochure clearly lists the firm's name as the Baumann Aircraft Corporation of Pacoima, CA. Locations may have shifted around with Jack - NASM lists Burbank; Flight International says North Hollywood; while Aerofiles has Santa Barbara. By 1950, the location of the Baumann Aircraft Corporation was most definitely Pacoima.
Obviously, working at Lockheed was a revelation for Jack in terms of modern, stressed-skin aircraft construction techniques. Baumann's new design was the B-250 Brigadier light twin. The distinctive feature of the B-250 was its engine installation. Twin Continental C125 HO6 engines were mounted, facing backwards on the wings' leading edge. Extension shafts led to the trailing edge to drive 2-bladed, variable-pitch Sensenich pusher propellers. That drive system would form the basis for all further Baumann Aircraft Corporation designs.
The B-250 Brigadier pusher twin first flew in June 1947. With its shoulder-mounted wings and forward engine cowlings, the view was a bit restricted from the rear seats of this five-seater. However, cabin noise would have been reduced by placing the props well aft of the passenger seats. The prototype was hand-assembled from what sounds like mainly war-surplus materials. The B-250 Brigadier prototype (NX30025) first flew on 28 June 1947. The flight trials were successful but the aircraft was somewhat underpowered. Baumann's attention turned towards a high-powered derivative, the B-290 Brigadier.
The prototype B-250 was then sold to Piper Aircraft to act as a pattern for their planned derivative - the PA-21. That, however, is a story in itself and will be told in a later post. https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/jack-b-baumann-aircraft-designations.32804/#post-372871
Selling the B-250 to Piper provided $25,000 towards building a higher-powered Brigadier. The prototype B-290 Brigadier (N90616) flew on 25 June 1952. The B-290 gained an added 40 hp from its Continental C145s but was otherwise identical to the B-290. This was the aircraft Jack Baumann had hoped for but, still, there was insufficient interest to raise financing for production. Worse, on January 8, 1953, the B-290 crashed while landing at Pacoima, CA. [12] The fuselage was heavily damaged while both pilot Ward C. Vettel and flight engineer Thomas Cox were injured in the crash.
Baumann had plans for two developed variants. The B-360 Deluxe Brigadier was to gain another increase in power - with twin 180 hp engines, as the designation number suggests. The B-480 Super Brigadier was to have more power still. But this was to be no re-engined B-290. The B-480 Super Brigadier was to have all-over larger dimensions. Neither development saw fruition. The badly-damaged B-290 Brigadier prototype was repaired to flightworthiness. And that may be the cause of some confusion ...
Some online sources claim that as many as three B-290 Brigadiers were built. Since none but N90616 (c/n 102) were registered, that seems extremely unlike. It may be that contemporary announcements of the proposed B-360 and B-480 caused readers to assume that prototypes had actually been built. Or perhaps the explanation is more mundane. The prototype B-290 appeared over the years in a number of paint schemes. In most photos, the registration - N90616 - can be clearly read but, perhaps, the differing schemes have mislead people?
It could be argued very loosely that three Brigadier airframes did exist - the B-250 (c/n 1, NX30025/N30025), the B-290 (c/n 102, N90616), and components completed as the Custer CCW-5 'Channel-Wing' prototype. Some sources claim the CCW-5 to have been a converted B-290. Others say that the CCW-5 was built under contract by the Baumann Aircraft Corporation which used components of the unfinished third Brigadier prototype. I guess your conclusion will depend upon how you define 'conversion'. Either way, the CCW-5 used the Brigadier fuselage largely unchanged as was the tail. Its difficult to tell how much (if any) of the Brigadier's wing went into the Custer prototype. [13]
As for Jack Baumann, he returned to Lockheed after shuttering Baumann Aircraft Corporation. He pops back up in 1966 when his name is associated with the development of ultra-quiet, low-speed surveillance aircraft for the US Army - a story I will cover in more detail in a later post. By 1967, Jack was living in Los Alto, CA. In 1969, he was sent to Schweizer Aircraft in NY to help construct the prototype YO-3A recce aircraft. Then Jack returns to corporate obscurity. In 1983, Jack B. Baumann retired from Lockheed. He died at 81 in February 1996.
__________________________
[1] 'Mercury Number 3 BT-120 Airplane Used As Ice Boat On Bay, Marinette-Menominee Eagle-Herald, 30 December 1995, page A1.
[2] The local newspaper lists the firm's name as Mercury Aircraft Co. Inc. - eg: 'Mercury Aircraft Co. Inc. Will Locate Its Factory In Menominee', Marinette Eagle-Star, 15 June 1940, page 1.
[3] Although generally named as F.L. Bette, the President of Mercury Aircraft is listed as 'F.L. Betts' in the Aircraft Year Book of 1941. I'm unsure which is correct (although Betts is the more common surname).
[4] This suggests that insufficient progress had been made on the Menominee airfield. The BT-120 was routed through Escanaba, the first airfield on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In 1936, the City of Escanaba began expanded its airport (under the Work Projects Administration program). Perhaps Baumann was regetting his choice of locations?
[5] Marinette Eagle-Star, Mercury Aircraft BT-120 First Plane Made In Menominee, 11 March 1941, page 3.
[6] Marinette Eagle-Star, Menominee Mercury Aircraft Co. Hires New Engineer, 28 October 1941, page 12.
[7] Oddly, the extant Mercury Aircraft Inc. incorrectly lists 1921 as its start date. Adding to the confusion is now-Mercury Corporation's use of the name 'Mercury Aircraft Corporation' - despite not seeming to make any aircraft parts today.
[8] The Mercury Chic T-2 parasol trainer was originally powered by the same 65 hp Velie radial as the Baumann B-65.
[9] There were other aviation suppliers with related names - the Mercury Manufacturing Co. of Chicago, Mercury Chemical Co. of Detroit, etc. So rebranding as Mercury Aircraft hardly set Baumann apart from the pack. I suspect that, with war on the horizon, this hasty rebranding was more about Baumann's (or his partners') concern over having a German-sounding name than a well thought through marketing decision.
[10] This firm had been formed at Frankfort, MI, in 1939 but Stan Corcoran was convinced to move to new facilities at Joliet in 1940 to build TG-1A training gliders for the Air Corps.
[11] When listed correctly, the form always seemed to be 'Baumann Aircraft Corporation'. That may have been an attempt to distinguish the Californian firm from the earlier, Knoxville-based Baumann Aircraft Corp. If so, the attempt failed. Almost invariably, the name was clipped by journalists (and others) to 'Baumann Aircraft Corp.'
[12] Crash photo - University of Southern California Digital Library, Los Angeles Examiner Photographs Collection, 1920-1961, Plane crash (Pacoima), 1953.
-- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15799coll44/id/72548/show/72544/rec/340
[13] A second, 'production-model' CCW-5 was completed in 1964 - looking much the same but featuring a raised horizontal tail. However, by that date, the Baumann Aircraft Corporation was long gone. The Baumann-built CCW-5 (N6257C) was written off in Sept 1967 at Gander, NL. When Willard Custer cancelled N6257C's FAA registration in Sept 1970, he reporting it as "destroyed".
-- http://www.custerchannelwing.net/images/CCW5_1.jpg
___________________________________
Jack B. Baumann Aircraft Designs
Jack Boyer Baumann (1914-1996) was born in Knoxville and went to the University of Tennessee to study engineering. I am sketchy on his earliest designs but I believe that he had a hand in both the Lacy-Baumann glider (NC11539) and the Velie radial-powered Baumann-Minsky B (NC18151) ... since both have connections with Knoxville and the latter was owned by a "J Baumann". (Some details on these designs would be appreciated if any members know more.)
What's in a Name? "... Jack is a notorious domesticity for John!"
Jack Baumann's name causes some confusion. "Jack B. Baumann" is the name which appears on the one aviation patent of his that I've found. Flying Magazine (June 1950, pg. 56) names him as "John B. Baumann" but I've found no evidence to suggest that Jack was a short form for 'John' in Baumann's case.
(Just to cover other possible confusions, the now-defunct Baumann Floats, LLC was founded by Bud Baumann - no relationship to Jack. Likewise, Jack Baumann Field in Rio Vista, CA, has no connection to J.B. Baumann. In 1995, Rio Vista Municipal Airport was named Jack Baumann Field to honour a local businessman and avid pilot, John Henry Baumann. J.H. Baumann had been a USAAF bomber pilot during WW2 and Baumann Road neighbouring the airport was also named after him.)
On Aerofiles, the late, great K.O. Eckland said of the biplane BT-120 Aerobat that Jack Baumann "resurrected the design as the post-war Baumann Brigadier". Not true, of course (just an inevitable artifact of maintaining a huge, complex website). Other confusions surround the fate of the third BT-120 airframe. As some sources claim, the aircraft was eventually assembled by amateurs from stored components found after WW2. Another story claims that the third BT-120 was completed as a wingless 'ice boat'. I favour the postwar construction from parts - parts of the third BT-120 airframe certainly was used for ice boat racing on frozen-over Green Bay ... but not until the Winter of 1995. [1]
There are also a number of widely-spread myths out there about Baumann's connections with the Piper Apache ... which I will address further on.
Baumann Aircraft Designations and Corporate Entities
While working at Taylor-Young Airplane Company ('Taylorcraft' in Alliance, OH) Jack Baumann designed a small cabin biplane for personal use. The B-65 two-seater cabin biplane flew in 1938. That airframe was re-engined as the B-90 before Baumann moved on to an enlarged design. To market his 4-seat B-100 cabin biplane, the Baumann Aircraft Corp. was founded in 1938 with Jack as President. This tiny firm oversaw the higher-powered B-120 cabin biplane and the early stages of its open-cockpit, tandem-seat trainer derivative - the BT-120.
As will already be obvious Jack Baumann's designs were designated "B" followed by the type's total engine horsepower. AFAIK, only nine Baumann 'B' designations were assigned - this includes two re-engined airframes (four if the B-290 and unbuilt B-360 are regarded as re-engined B-250 derivatives). Of course, if forum members are aware of other Baumann designs - 'B' designations or not - I would be thrilled to hear about them.
The sole exception within Jack Baumann's 'B' designation series was the BT-120 Aerobat. This was because the BT-120 had exactly the same horsepower as the preceding B-120 cabin aircraft. To skirt the problem, Baumann simply added 'T' for Trainer to his designation prefix. Construction of the BT-120 trainer began at Knoxville in the summer of 1940 - which would prove to be a busy year for Baumann.
In early 1940, civic officials from Menominee, MI contacted Baumann Aircraft Corp. They were offering incentives to move the firm to a new airport to be constructed in their county (the Menominee County Airport being a national defence project under the Michigan Works Project Administration.) In June 1940, Jack Baumann visited Menominee, accompanied by his young assistant (and first cousin), Billy F. Baumann. The county of Menominee was offering space and even to funding materials needed to begin BT-120 contruction. A deal was struck and Baumann began arrangements to move his operation from Tennessee to Michigan.
The BT-120 Aerobat was aimed at the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) started in 1938. However, the small size of the Baumann Aircraft Corp. argued against it getting any government contracts. As a result, the firm was reorganized along more professional lines. To increase the chances of a BT-120 sale, the Baumann Aircraft Corp. was superceded by the Mercury Aircraft Corp. [2] The role of President was taken over by businessman F.L. Bette, [3] Jack Baumann became Chief Engineer and shared the Vice presidency of the new company with its General Manager, R.D. 'Dick' Smith.
Jack Baumann and the Mercury Aircraft Corp.
With the new Mercury Aircraft Corp. established at Menominee, MI, the first BT-120 was test flown at Knoxville in late September 1940 ... although it did not receive its Type Certificate from the Civil Aeronautics Administration until August 1941. By then, the aircraft was in Menominee (having arrived in late February 1941 via Escanaba airport, 55 miles to the north). [4] On 11 March 1941, the local newspaper reported that the second BT-120 had been completed. [5] That sounds grander than it was - Mercury was building its airframes on the second floor of the Northern Hardware & Supply Co. building on Menominee's Main Street.
Parts for a third BT-120 airframe were finished in Menominee but these components were not assembled by Mercury Aircraft. [6] Alas, the CPTP was questioning whether is really required aerobatics training aircraft. The market for which the BT-120 had been created was disappearing. One of the three BT-120s was used for a short time to train CPTP pilots but no production order was forthcoming from the government. The writing was on the wall and Jack Baumann handed in his resignation. By late October, Mercury Aircraft had hired a new engineer [5] to replace Baumann but with no orders, funds quickly ran out. By November, Mercury was offering flying lessons to locals with the finished aircraft. It didn't help. By July 1942, Mercury Aircraft Corp. had closed (and the Menominee airport would not even be completed until late 1942 or early 1943).
Choosing Mercury as a company name may not have been very wise. A company with exactly the same name - Mercury Aircraft Corp - had failed in Fairfax, KS, back in 1932. There was still a Mercury Aircraft operating out of Hammondsport, NY. Originally, that name had been a trademark for the Aerial Service Corporation (formed in 1920 by former Curtiss personnel to support war-surplus JN-4 Jennys). [7] That firm's original designs now tend to be called 'Aerial Mercury' types to distinguish them from what came next. In early 1929, the firm rebranded itself as Mercury Aircraft Inc. to market its new Mercury Chic T-2 [8] and Mercury Kitten high-winged monoplanes. By the time Baumann adopted the Mercury name, the Hammondsport namesake was mainly a parts supplier to Curtiss. [9]
Of course, a poor choice of company names would have been a minor factor. Baumann's Mercury Aircraft Corp. represented a personnel expansion and moving operations 800 miles north. Menominee was a faltering lumber town and Mercury had to start night school courses to teach locals welding before they could even begin building BT-120 components. When the CPTP decided to drop its aerobatics trainer requirement, the game was over. Jack Baumann had seen it coming and taken a job with the Frankfort Sailplane Company in Joliet, Illinois under Stanley Corcoran. [10]
"Go West, young man, go West" - Jack B. Baumann in California
Jack Baumann didn't stay long with Frankfort Sailplane. Instead, he accepted a position with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation - moving to Burbank, CA, in January 1942. At this stage of the war, Lockheed Burbank built P-38 Lightnings at its Plant B-1 and licensed Boeing B-17s at Plant A-1. However, J.B. Baumann then seems to disappear without a trace for the duration of the war. I am at a completeloss as to what Jack did at Lockheed during WW2. There seems to be no mention whatever of Jack until he leaves Lockheed to develop his new aviation concepts. The new company - the Baumann Aircraft Corporation - was formed after the war's end in 1945.
The exact company name is worth noting - Baumann Aircraft Corporation [11] There are plenty of references to a 'Baumann Aircraft Company' - including in reminiscences by Jack's cousin and test pilot, Billy Baumann. However, the B-290 sales brochure clearly lists the firm's name as the Baumann Aircraft Corporation of Pacoima, CA. Locations may have shifted around with Jack - NASM lists Burbank; Flight International says North Hollywood; while Aerofiles has Santa Barbara. By 1950, the location of the Baumann Aircraft Corporation was most definitely Pacoima.
Obviously, working at Lockheed was a revelation for Jack in terms of modern, stressed-skin aircraft construction techniques. Baumann's new design was the B-250 Brigadier light twin. The distinctive feature of the B-250 was its engine installation. Twin Continental C125 HO6 engines were mounted, facing backwards on the wings' leading edge. Extension shafts led to the trailing edge to drive 2-bladed, variable-pitch Sensenich pusher propellers. That drive system would form the basis for all further Baumann Aircraft Corporation designs.
The B-250 Brigadier pusher twin first flew in June 1947. With its shoulder-mounted wings and forward engine cowlings, the view was a bit restricted from the rear seats of this five-seater. However, cabin noise would have been reduced by placing the props well aft of the passenger seats. The prototype was hand-assembled from what sounds like mainly war-surplus materials. The B-250 Brigadier prototype (NX30025) first flew on 28 June 1947. The flight trials were successful but the aircraft was somewhat underpowered. Baumann's attention turned towards a high-powered derivative, the B-290 Brigadier.
The prototype B-250 was then sold to Piper Aircraft to act as a pattern for their planned derivative - the PA-21. That, however, is a story in itself and will be told in a later post. https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/jack-b-baumann-aircraft-designations.32804/#post-372871
Selling the B-250 to Piper provided $25,000 towards building a higher-powered Brigadier. The prototype B-290 Brigadier (N90616) flew on 25 June 1952. The B-290 gained an added 40 hp from its Continental C145s but was otherwise identical to the B-290. This was the aircraft Jack Baumann had hoped for but, still, there was insufficient interest to raise financing for production. Worse, on January 8, 1953, the B-290 crashed while landing at Pacoima, CA. [12] The fuselage was heavily damaged while both pilot Ward C. Vettel and flight engineer Thomas Cox were injured in the crash.
Baumann had plans for two developed variants. The B-360 Deluxe Brigadier was to gain another increase in power - with twin 180 hp engines, as the designation number suggests. The B-480 Super Brigadier was to have more power still. But this was to be no re-engined B-290. The B-480 Super Brigadier was to have all-over larger dimensions. Neither development saw fruition. The badly-damaged B-290 Brigadier prototype was repaired to flightworthiness. And that may be the cause of some confusion ...
Some online sources claim that as many as three B-290 Brigadiers were built. Since none but N90616 (c/n 102) were registered, that seems extremely unlike. It may be that contemporary announcements of the proposed B-360 and B-480 caused readers to assume that prototypes had actually been built. Or perhaps the explanation is more mundane. The prototype B-290 appeared over the years in a number of paint schemes. In most photos, the registration - N90616 - can be clearly read but, perhaps, the differing schemes have mislead people?
It could be argued very loosely that three Brigadier airframes did exist - the B-250 (c/n 1, NX30025/N30025), the B-290 (c/n 102, N90616), and components completed as the Custer CCW-5 'Channel-Wing' prototype. Some sources claim the CCW-5 to have been a converted B-290. Others say that the CCW-5 was built under contract by the Baumann Aircraft Corporation which used components of the unfinished third Brigadier prototype. I guess your conclusion will depend upon how you define 'conversion'. Either way, the CCW-5 used the Brigadier fuselage largely unchanged as was the tail. Its difficult to tell how much (if any) of the Brigadier's wing went into the Custer prototype. [13]
As for Jack Baumann, he returned to Lockheed after shuttering Baumann Aircraft Corporation. He pops back up in 1966 when his name is associated with the development of ultra-quiet, low-speed surveillance aircraft for the US Army - a story I will cover in more detail in a later post. By 1967, Jack was living in Los Alto, CA. In 1969, he was sent to Schweizer Aircraft in NY to help construct the prototype YO-3A recce aircraft. Then Jack returns to corporate obscurity. In 1983, Jack B. Baumann retired from Lockheed. He died at 81 in February 1996.
__________________________
[1] 'Mercury Number 3 BT-120 Airplane Used As Ice Boat On Bay, Marinette-Menominee Eagle-Herald, 30 December 1995, page A1.
[2] The local newspaper lists the firm's name as Mercury Aircraft Co. Inc. - eg: 'Mercury Aircraft Co. Inc. Will Locate Its Factory In Menominee', Marinette Eagle-Star, 15 June 1940, page 1.
[3] Although generally named as F.L. Bette, the President of Mercury Aircraft is listed as 'F.L. Betts' in the Aircraft Year Book of 1941. I'm unsure which is correct (although Betts is the more common surname).
[4] This suggests that insufficient progress had been made on the Menominee airfield. The BT-120 was routed through Escanaba, the first airfield on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In 1936, the City of Escanaba began expanded its airport (under the Work Projects Administration program). Perhaps Baumann was regetting his choice of locations?
[5] Marinette Eagle-Star, Mercury Aircraft BT-120 First Plane Made In Menominee, 11 March 1941, page 3.
[6] Marinette Eagle-Star, Menominee Mercury Aircraft Co. Hires New Engineer, 28 October 1941, page 12.
[7] Oddly, the extant Mercury Aircraft Inc. incorrectly lists 1921 as its start date. Adding to the confusion is now-Mercury Corporation's use of the name 'Mercury Aircraft Corporation' - despite not seeming to make any aircraft parts today.
[8] The Mercury Chic T-2 parasol trainer was originally powered by the same 65 hp Velie radial as the Baumann B-65.
[9] There were other aviation suppliers with related names - the Mercury Manufacturing Co. of Chicago, Mercury Chemical Co. of Detroit, etc. So rebranding as Mercury Aircraft hardly set Baumann apart from the pack. I suspect that, with war on the horizon, this hasty rebranding was more about Baumann's (or his partners') concern over having a German-sounding name than a well thought through marketing decision.
[10] This firm had been formed at Frankfort, MI, in 1939 but Stan Corcoran was convinced to move to new facilities at Joliet in 1940 to build TG-1A training gliders for the Air Corps.
[11] When listed correctly, the form always seemed to be 'Baumann Aircraft Corporation'. That may have been an attempt to distinguish the Californian firm from the earlier, Knoxville-based Baumann Aircraft Corp. If so, the attempt failed. Almost invariably, the name was clipped by journalists (and others) to 'Baumann Aircraft Corp.'
[12] Crash photo - University of Southern California Digital Library, Los Angeles Examiner Photographs Collection, 1920-1961, Plane crash (Pacoima), 1953.
-- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15799coll44/id/72548/show/72544/rec/340
[13] A second, 'production-model' CCW-5 was completed in 1964 - looking much the same but featuring a raised horizontal tail. However, by that date, the Baumann Aircraft Corporation was long gone. The Baumann-built CCW-5 (N6257C) was written off in Sept 1967 at Gander, NL. When Willard Custer cancelled N6257C's FAA registration in Sept 1970, he reporting it as "destroyed".
-- http://www.custerchannelwing.net/images/CCW5_1.jpg
___________________________________
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