Avro Baby

The Avro 534 Baby, first called the Popular, was a British single-seat light sporting biplane built shortly after the First World War, a single-bay wire-braced wooden biplane with canvas covering and a tailskid. The first Babies had a 35 hp Green C.4 water-cooled inline engine, and some variants later used an ADC Cirrus or a Le Rhone rotary. The first prototype flew from Avro's Hamble airfield on 30 April 1919 and crashed on the nearby foreshore two minutes into the flight through pilot error, while the second prototype flew successfully on 31 May 1919. Variants included the Water Baby floatplane and the Type 554 Antarctic Baby built as a photographic aircraft for the 1921 to 1922 Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, and in June 1922 a Baby made the first flight between London and Moscow.