Creating the Tiny Stearman

Chris Hiatt remembers his very first airplane ride.

He was sitting on his father’s lap in an open cockpit Stearman crop duster.

That memory is what fueled his desire to pay tribute to his father by restoring his Baby Great Lakes into a “Tiny Stearman.”

“I don’t have the discretionary funds it takes to own and maintain a real Stearman, so my tiny Baby Great Lakes will have to do for now,” says the Castroville, Texas-based pilot.

Chris had flown the Baby Great Lakes for about 200 hours before beginning its restoration into a tiny Stearman.

It was a total frame-up restoration, he notes.

“Every nut and bolt was replaced and a lot of work went into freshening up the engine, which hadn’t run in a very long time,” he reports.

Turning the Baby Great Lakes into a Tiny Stearman was an intensive job that was completed in an astounding 144 days.

“I had the assistance of an amazing fabricator/builder who, without his help, I would not have the results I have now,” Chris says. “Tim Barrow spent long days, sometimes 10- to 15-hour days, pushing to help me finish the project.”

He adds that “many other Castroville, Texas, friends also helped along the way.”

Based at Castroville Municipal Airport (KCVB) in Texas, Chris bought the Baby Great Lakes from a mutual friend who had intentions of adding Christmas lights to the airframe and making it part of a holiday display.

After much research and consultation, Chris decided to cover, glue, and paint the Tiny Stearman with Stewart Systems products. This afforded Chris the opportunity to share parts of the restoration with his grandkids since Stewart Systems use a non-hazardous, waterborne product.

He was attracted to the biplane after he retired from a 26-year career in the military, especially the “body lines as viewed from the rear of the aircraft,” as well as the “swept wings with rounded wing tips, along with the symmetrical fuselage and tail feathers.”

“To me that’s what a sporty biplane should look like,” he says.

But how does it fly?

While Chris calls the Baby Great Lakes a “solid airplane,” he adds he wouldn’t recommend it to be anyone’s first tailwheel airplane.

“Mine doesn’t have a steerable or lockable tailwheel — it’s full castering,” he explains. “You have to use the Cleveland brakes to steer it and it does go through brake pads.”

“It doesn’t have any bad tendencies that I wasn’t prepared for, having taken a lot of aerobatic training, but it spins faster than anything I’ve ever spun, and it just does everything so much faster,” he adds.

Chris has more than 1,200 hours in all kinds of airplanes, including 360 total in the Baby Great Lakes and 145 since the restoration in the Tiny Stearman.

A familiar site at fly-ins throughout Texas, Chris says that when he arrives, “people simply cannot believe how small it is and they are also surprised to find out how powerful the engine is.”

Powered by 140-hp Lycoming O-290G engine, Chris notes that he has never flown anything that has this horsepower-to-weight ratio.

“Unless you’ve experienced a climb rate of 2,000 fpm, you can’t describe it to somebody,” he says. “It’s just exhilarating.”

Now that the Tiny Stearman is on its way to becoming a local legend, what’s next for Chris?

“I’m so lucky to be part of the aviation crowd at KCVB, where there is always a small tube and fabric airplane flying around the patch,” he says. “We are in the final stages of completing a total restoration of Tim Barrow’s Renault Stampe and there is always something to work on and plenty of projects to keep all of us busy for a very long time.”

Looking back at what went into creating the Tiny Stearman, would Chris do it again?

“That’s a tricky question,” he admits.

“After doing it, I would not take on this task again, however, without doing it, I would absolutely do it again,” he says. “Now that we’ve danced together for 300-plus hours, I wouldn’t change a thing. It turned out better than I ever dreamed it would and it is without a doubt the best I can do.

“I love it, and I’m lucky that I get to be its caretaker for a little while,” he concludes.

Tiny Stearman Specifications

• Wingspan: 16 feet, 8 inches
• Length: 13 feet, 6 inches
• Empty weight: 583 pounds
• Maximum weight: 850 pounds at airframe max stressed to 9 Gs
• Engine: 140 horsepower, Lycoming O-290G with O-320 crankshaft and high compression pistons
• 16 gallon fuel tank, 1.5 gallon smoke tank
• Stewart Systems Paint
• Propeller: Culver Props, 64×63 wood
• Maximum speed: 180 mph
• Cruise speed: 120-125 mph
• Stall speed: 58 mph
• Rate of climb: 2,000 foot per minute