In Martin’s old factory

When the Glenn L. Martin Company moved from Cleveland to Baltimore in 1928, the holding company Allied Motor Industries bought the old plant and founded Great Lakes Aircraft in October that year. It inherited the jigs for Martin’s T4M torpedo bomber, so when the US Navy wanted more, it ordered them from Great Lakes. By 2 January 1929 the old Martin line was running again, turning out 18 TG-1s and 32 re-engined TG-2s. Chief engineer P.B. “Zeke” Rogers then designed the BG dive bomber, of which 61 were built from 1933.

The Sport Trainer

The company’s heart, though, was the 2T-1 Sport Trainer, a small two-seat open-cockpit biplane for private owners. Great Lakes once held as many as 650 deposits, but the Depression wiped out more than half, and only 264 Sport Trainers were built before the company folded in 1935, its parts and drawings sold at a bankruptcy sale. Prototypes for the Navy, including the XSG flying boat and TBG torpedo bomber, won no orders.

The biplane that would not die

The biplane outlived its maker. Re-engined with Warner radials and Menascos, it became the top American-made aerobatic aircraft until the late 1960s, flown by Tex Rankin, Betty Skelton and Frank Price, who took one to the 1960 world aerobatics contest as the first US entry. Revivals followed: Champlin built 137 in the 1970s, Dean Franklin and John LaBelle a few more, and WACO Classic had built 20 by 2022. In the last two years of the Ford National Reliability Air Tour the company also awarded its own Great Lakes Trophy, for the fastest aircraft with a small engine.

Továrny

• Cleveland factory · Cleveland, Ohio — Former Glenn L. Martin plant

Lidé

• P.B. “Zeke” Rogers · chief engineer
• Tex Rankin · stunt pilot — Made the Sport Trainer famous

Rekordy a prvenství

• First US entry in a world aerobatics contest was a Great Lakes biplane flown by Frank Price, 1960