Carden-Baynes Auxiliary

Abbott-Baynes Sailplanes · United Kingdom · first flew 1935 · light aircraft

The Carden-Baynes Auxiliary was a British motor glider, the first with a retractable engine and propeller. Without its engine it is known as the Abbott-Baynes Scud 3.

Recognition (WEFT)

W — Wings	High-mounted, tapered
E — Engines	1 × piston, fuselage-mounted
F — Fuselage	6.86 m fuselage
T — Tail	Conventional

WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.

Spot it by:

Wings carried on a mounting pylon whose fairing extends aft of the trailing edge and houses the engine
Single cockpit well ahead of the wings
Tall fin with an unbalanced rudder and a tailplane about a third of the way up the fin

Look for an all-wood glider with a long, heavily tapered wing and a pylon fairing behind the wing root. Seen with the engine deployed, a small propeller stands vertically above the fuselage.

Specifications

The Carden-Baynes Auxiliary has a length of 6.86 m (23 ft).
It has a wingspan of 13.87 m (46 ft).
Its maximum speed is 65 km/h (40 mph).
Typical crew: 1.

Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.

History

Sir John Carden proposed fitting a self-launching engine that could be retracted to leave a clean sailplane, and Leslie Baynes designed the Scud 3 to take it. It first flew on 8 August 1935, powered by a 250 cc Villiers two-stroke engine run inverted to put the propeller line high.

Variants

The same airframe was flown with the engine as the Carden-Baynes Auxiliary and without it as the Abbott-Baynes Scud 3, and the engine could be removed or fitted afterwards. Two aircraft were built.

Where you'll see it

The first aircraft still carried its engine in 1949, when it was registered G-ALJR. Both aircraft were still flying in 2010 as pure sailplanes.

Related aircraft

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