Great Lakes Aircraft Company
Encyclopedia
Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...
. The company has a long history of building both private and military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
.
Origins
In 1929, the Great Lakes Aircraft Company (GLAC) was formed in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
at the former site of the Martin Aircraft Company. They built civilian biplanes, float planes, as well as biplane torpedo bombers under contract to the US Navy. The model that most people think of today when someone says, "Great Lakes aircraft," is the enduring 2T biplane; also known as the Great Lakes Sport Trainer. It was designed and sold as a two-place, open cockpit biplane. The first engines were an 85 hp (63 kW) American Cirrus
Cirrus
Cirrus may refer to:In science:*Cirrus cloud, a type of cloud*Cirrus , a German research rocket*Cirrus, a fleshy, downward extension of the upper lip in salamanders or fish*Cirrus, a thoracic limb of an adult barnacle...
Mk III. The 2T biplane was not as large as some of its contemporaries manufactured by Stearman
Stearman Aircraft
Stearman Aircraft Corporation was an aircraft manufacturer in Wichita, Kansas. Although the company designed a range of other aircraft, it is most known for producing the Model 75, which is commonly known simply as the "Stearman" or "Boeing Stearman"....
, WACO
Waco Aircraft Company
The Waco Aircraft Company was an aircraft manufacturer located in Troy, Ohio, USA. Between 1919 and 1947, the company produced a wide range of civilian biplanes....
and Travel Air
Travel Air
The Travel Air Manufacturing Company was an aircraft manufacturer established in Wichita, Kansas in the United States in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman.-Company history:...
.
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Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
(262 kg
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
) and it was stressed for 9 g
G force
The g-force associated with an object is its acceleration relative to free-fall.It may also refer to:* G-Force , a 2009 film by Disney** G-Force , a 2009 video game based on the film...
positive and 6 G negative. It had outrigger landing gear with spring oleo shock struts, and the range was 375 miles. The sale price started out at $4,990 dollars but as the depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
came it was lowered to $3,985. The first four Sport Trainers built were of a rare straight-wing design, one of which was modified into a special racer. Because of problems recovering from flat spins, the top wing was swept back and that is what most people recognize first when looking at a Sport Trainer. At its peak, Great Lakes had as many as 650 deposits for new aircraft. With the onset of the great depression, the Great Lakes Aircraft Company went out of business closing their doors in 1936. The company built just 264 of the Sport Trainers ordered.
Acrobatic planes
As the years went by, the original Cirrus engine installation was replaced by WarnerWarner Aircraft Corporation
The Warner Aircraft Corporation of Detroit, Michigan was the manufacturer of the Scarab family of radial engines for airplanes in 1928 through the early 1930s.-History:...
radials, inline Menascos or Fairchild-Rangers, and horizontally-opposed Lycomings, Franklins, or Continentals. Tex Rankin, a stunt pilot of the 30s and 40's, made the Great Lakes Sport Trainer famous. He had one specially modified and installed a 150 hp supercharged
Supercharger
A supercharger is an air compressor used for forced induction of an internal combustion engine.The greater mass flow-rate provides more oxygen to support combustion than would be available in a naturally aspirated engine, which allows more fuel to be burned and more work to be done per cycle,...
Menasco engine. It was painted red, white and blue with his name upright on one side, and upside down in the other, so folks would know who he was when he flew by upside down. Tex's airplane is being restored by the Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
Aviation Museum.
For about 30 years, until the late 1960s, the Great Lakes Sport Trainer was the top American-made acro plane. Other pilots who made the Great Lakes reputation famous were: Hal Krier, Hank Kennedy, Lindsay Parsons, Dorothy Hester, Betty Skelton, Charley Hillard, and Frank Price. The first United States entry in a world aerobatics
Aerobatics
Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in normal flight. Aerobatics are performed in airplanes and gliders for training, recreation, entertainment and sport...
contest was a Great Lakes biplane that Frank Price of Texas took to Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
in 1960.
Re-establishment of the company
During the 1960s Harvey Swack of Cleveland, Ohio, obtained the rights to the Sport Trainer design and all the factory drawings for it. Harvey then sold plans to homebuilders until 1990, when he sold off the plans business to Steen Aero Lab of Palm Bay, FloridaPalm Bay, Florida
Palm Bay is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population as 100,786 on 1 July 2008; it is the most populous city in the county...
. There have been a great number homebuilt Great Lakes Sport Trainers built over the years, which kept interest in this old biplane alive.
In the later 1970s, the Great Lakes 2T-1A was built in Eastman, Georgia. After a run of three or four years, the factory was closed.
In 1973 Doug Champlin brought the Great Lakes back into production in Oklahoma. The general design was not changed much. The fuselage was strengthened by using thicker walled tubing, and the engines used were 150 or 180 hp Lycomings. The wings utilized Douglas Fir in place of Sitka Spruce
Sitka Spruce
Picea sitchensis, the Sitka Spruce, is a large coniferous evergreen tree growing to 50–70 m tall, exceptionally to 95 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 5 m, exceptionally to 6–7 m diameter...
, and on some models, additional ailerons were added to the top wing. 137 airframes were produced. An addition 6 airframes were produced in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. The factory rights were sold to various people until 1985, when production ceased. Doug Champlin also built one Turbine powered Great Lakes 2T. With 420 hp (310 kW), it was quite a show stopper.
In 2000, John Duncan
John Duncan
John Duncan may refer to:* John Duncan , American artist and musician* John Duncan , Scottish weaver and botanist* John Duncan , MP from British Columbia...
of Palmer Lake, Colorado
Palmer Lake, Colorado
Palmer Lake is a Statutory Town in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The population was 2,179 at the 2000 census. Palmer Lake was founded by General William Jackson Palmer in 1871. The town was soon incorporated in 1889....
, bought the Great Lakes Sport Trainer type certificate and tooling. In 2006 Doncan announced his plan to bring the Sport Trainer back into production once again. When he gets 10 airplane orders, the factory will begin production. Duncan's company today is called The Great Lakes Aircraft Company LLC.
Product
- Great Lakes BGGreat Lakes BG|-See also:-Bibliography:* Donald, David . The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft. Aerospace Publishing. 1997. ISBN 1-85605-375-X.* Grossnik, Roy A. Dictionary of Americal Naval Aviation Squadrons: Volume 1 The History of VA, VAH, VAK, VAL, VAP and VFA Squadrons. Washington DC: Naval Historical Centre,...
- Great Lakes B2G
- Great Lakes TG
- Great Lakes XSG
- Great Lakes TBGGreat Lakes TBG|-See also:...
- Great Lakes Sport TrainerGreat Lakes Sport Trainer-Bibliography:* Donald, David . The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft. Aerospace Publishing. 1997. ISBN 1-85605-375-X.* Taylor, J.W.R. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1976-77. London: Jane's, 1976. ISBN 0 354 00538 3....
- Great Lakes 2-S-W
- Great Lakes 2-T-1
- Great Lakes 2-T-2 Speedster
- Great Lakes 4-A-1
- Great Lakes 41
- Great Lakes TG-1 Commercial
- Great Lakes X
- Great lakes XPT-930 (Model 41)