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The Avro 534 Baby (originally named the "Popular") was a British single-seat light sporting biplane built shortly after the First World War.
The first Babies were powered by a water-cooled inline Green C.4 engine of pre-1914 design that had previously been installed in the Avro Type D, though thoroughly remodelled postwar by the Green Engine Co.Jackson 1990, p. 165. It produced 35 hp (26 kW). Most of the later Babies also used this engine design, new-built from original Green drawings by Peter Brotherhood Limited of Peterborough, though some variants used either a 60 hp (45 kW) ADC Cirrus 1 or an 80 hp (60 kW) Le Rhône. These new-build Greens were about 6 lb (3 kg) lighter.
The prototype first flew on 30 April 1919 from Avro's Hamble airfield. It crashed on the nearby foreshore two minutes into the flight due to pilot error. The second prototype flew successfully on 31 May 1919.
The type 534A Water Baby was a floatplane version with an altered rudder and large fin. The fourth (counting the short-lived prototype) Baby was designated Type 534B, distinguished by its plywood-covered fuselage and reduced-span lower wing. The Type 534C had both wings clipped for racing in the 1921 Aerial Derby. The 534D was a Baby modified for hot climates and was used by a businessman in India. All 534s were Green-engined single-seaters.Jackson 1990, p. 167.
The Type 543 Baby was a two-seater with a 2 ft 6 in (76 cm) fuselage extension. It too was initially Green-powered, but in 1926, this was replaced by an 80 hp (60 kW) ADC Cirrus 1 air-cooled upright inline engine.Jackson 1990, p. 166. The final version of the Baby was the type 554 Antarctic Baby, built as photographic aircraft for the 1921–1922 Shackleton–Rowett Expedition to Antarctica. This had an 80 hp (60 kW) le Rhone engine, raised , rounded wingtips and tubular steel interplane strut replacing rigging wires to avoid the problems of tensioning rigging wires with gloved hands. Like the Water Baby, it was a floatplane.Jackson 1990, pp. 169–170.
By far the strangest Baby was one modified by H.G. Leigh in 1920.Jackson 1990, pp. 170, 172. The original wings were removed and instead the aircraft had a short, conventional, shoulder-mounted wing, bearing projecting, full-span ailerons. Above it was a strongly forward-staggered stack of six very narrow-chord wings of about the same span as the lower wing, hence each of very high aspect ratio and therefore with low induced drag. This complicated structure added about 60 lb (30 kg) to the weight. This "Venetian blind" wing design was proposed and previously explored by Horatio Phillips in the last decade of the 19th century.Taylor 1955, image 49.
In June 1922, another Baby made the first flight between London and Moscow when the Russian Gwaiter collected his machine from Hamble and flew it home.
Ernest Shackleton planned to take an Avro Baby 'Antarctic' on his final expedition, but their ship, the Quest, delayed by engine trouble and by-passed Cape Town, to where the Avro had been shipped, after it was found it took up too much space on the Quest.
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