Baumann Brigadier

The Baumann Brigadier was a prototype American light transport aircraft of the late 1940s. It was a twin-engined monoplane, which, unusually, was of pusher configuration. Only two were built, plans for production never coming to fruition.

Development and design
Jack Baumann, who had worked for the Taylor Aircraft Company (later to become Piper Aircraft) and Lockheed, set up the Baumann Aircraft Corporation in Pacoima, Los Angeles, California in 1945. His first design for the new company was the B-250 Brigadier, a twin-engined pusher monoplane intended as an executive transport. It was of all-metal construction, with cantilever shoulder mounted wings, and with the pusher engines mounted in nacelles on the wing. An enclosed cabin accommodated a pilot and four passengers, while the aircraft was fitted with a retractable nosewheel undercarriage.

The first prototype, powered by two 125 hp engines (hence the B-250 designation) flew on 20 June 1947. Piper Aircraft was interested in building a tractor version of the Brigadier, and purchased the B-250 prototype and its drawings, designating it the PA-21, with some sources claiming that the B-250 formed the basis of the Piper Apache, although other sources state that Piper abandoned work on the PA-21 and that the Apache was unrelated.

Baumann continued development of the pusher Brigadier, with the second example, the B-290, being fitted with 145 hp Continental C-145 engines but was otherwise similar to the B-250. The B-290, registered N90616, crash-landed at Pacoima on January 8, 1953, heavily damaging the fuselage and injuring pilot Ward C. Vettel and flight engineer Thomas Cox. Production at a rate of one aircraft per month was planned for the B-290. The Brigadier was chosen by Willard Ray Custer as the basis of his Custer CCW-5, which used the fuselage and tail of the Brigadier, but had a modified wing with the engines sitting in U-shaped ducts, but other than the two CCW-5s no production of the B-290 followed. Baumann continued to propose more powerful versions of the Brigadier, but no airframes resulted.

Variants

 * B-250 Brigadier
 * Initial prototype. Two 125 hp engines.


 * B-290 Brigadier
 * More powerful second prototype (two 145 hp engines).


 * B-360 Brigadier
 * Planned version with 180 hp Lycoming engines.


 * B-480 Super Brigadier
 * Planned enlarged version with 240 hp Continental O-470 engines.


 * Piper PA-21
 * Tractor-engined version, abandoned.