The Baby 1 had a ply covered fuselage of hexagon cross section and the strut braced wing of 12.8 span had differential ailerons and a thick Gottingen 535 aerofoil that gave good lift at slow speeds and a gentle stall. Grunau Baby 2In 1933 the design was modified to a 13.5 span, a roomier cockpit and a redesigned tail unit. One of the first of these, designated Grunau Baby 2, was flown by German pilot Kurt Schmidt for 36 hours, which remained a world duration record until 1949

Schneider continued to refine the airplane and introduced the Baby 2 A and the definitive 2 B. The 2 A introduced a wing of slightly greater span to accommodate spoilers for glidepath control, ailerons with a narrower chord, and for the first time, a canopy and windscreen for the cockpit Grunau Baby 2bOn the 2 B, Schneider changed the spoilers to the more powerful Schempp-Hirth, 'parallelogram' configuration and added a wheeled launch dolly that the pilot jettisoned immediately after takeoff. The Baby 2B had a longer nose and a wider cockpit and proved to be the most popular version of the design and was the one most built

.

Soon after the end of WW2, the Grunau Baby 3 was designed built in small numbers in Germany. It was little more than an improved 2B model but it also had a cockpit canopy and a landing wheel in place of the former skidded undercarriage.

Grunau Baby 3a

When Edmund Schneider and his family moved to Australia in 1951 the baby 3 was again slightly updated to be the Baby 3A. Only one 3A was ever built. It is still around. Throughout the various versions the original Gottingen 535 aerofoil was retained.

These flew in 1934 with 18HP Kroeber M.4 engines mounted, pushing, between and above the wings. The engine was not retractable. A photograph shows five of these on the ground and another four in the air over the airfield of Hartau, near Grunau. The span was 13.6m, length 6.6m and empty weight 190kg.

Various modifications to the outline were made by some of the many different manufacturers. The easiest to recognise are the rudder profiles, some of which are shown on the right. Further changes are detailed in the following text.

How many Grunau Babies were built?

An exact answer is not possible. In Georg Brütting's `Die Berühmtesten Segelflugzeuge" it states that Edmund Schneider's factory at Grunau built about 80 Grunau Baby Is and 700 Grunau Baby 2s, 2A and 2B. In addition to this, the type was in mass production at Espenlaub's Factory, at Schweyer's factory, (which in 1943 built 280 Weihes,) at Naumberger's factory, at the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) aircraft factory, which also mass produced M"-13Õs, and was being built by gliding groups and firms all over Germany. It was also put into licensed production in almost twenty countries including Holland, Spain, Rumania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and above all, in Sweden where the Swedish Air Force flew 31 Grunau Baby 2B-2 it has been built under licence.. We believe that the Grunau Baby was also mass-produced by Schleicher's factory during the War. Brütting states that possibly 5000 Grunau Babys were built in total, and it is therefore evident that the Grunau Baby became the most flown sailplane in the world.

Martin Simons writes in 'Australian Gliding' that 22 Grunau Baby Is were built by Edmund Schneider in 1932 alone, but he indicates that yet more were built by groups from plans bought from Schneider. Martin may have obtained this information from Harry, Edmund Schneider's son, who has a glider factory in Adelaide, South Australia.

Our information indicates that during the War the number of Grunau Babys in Germany far exceeded the number of all other sailplane types put together, though there may have been more primaries than Grunau Babys. Alone of all types, mass production of the Grunau Baby continued well into 1944 and factory records show that 4,104 rolled from workshops in Germany and the occupied countries. From this, it would seem possible that if there were as many as 4104 Grunau Babys in Germany during the War, there may have been a total of only 2000/2500 other types. Aircraft fuel became scarcer as the war progressed, and the Grunau Baby's role as a pilot training aircraft became more important. The Baby was considered as semi-aerobatic, although test pilot Eric Collins was killed in his Grunau Baby at the Cobham Air Show in 1935 when he attempted a forward loop and lost a wing. To completely train fighter pilots in the Grunau Baby was not possible. Nevertheless, its contribution to cheap initial training and selection of aircrew was beyond measure. They were extensively used in invasion glider training, and one technique was to use an angled landing light to help in night landings. Without it, the German Eagle would have found it much more expensive to get airborne. Just before the War, the Grunau Baby seems to have been worked on by DFS prior to mass production for the NSFK. As from this time it was known as the DFS 49 and had the German RLM glider code 108-49. All Grunau Baby 2B drawings are marked thus. Almost certainly from this time the Grunau Baby 2B became the 2B-2 version.

Aircraft fuel became scarcer as the war progressed, and the grunau baby's role as a pilot training aircraft became more important. The baby was considered as semi-aerobatic, although test pilot Eric Collins was killed in his grunau baby at the Cobham air show in 1935 when he attempted a forward loop and lost a wing. To completely train fighter pilots in the Grunau baby was not possible. Nevertheless, its contribution to cheap initial training and selection of aircrew was beyond measure. They were extensively used in invasion glider training, and one technique was to use an angled landing light to help in night landings

Approximately 100 Grunau Babys were built as follows :-

The machine was very popular in Sweden and became known as the "C Diplomat"

Karpf Baby

Nord 1300

Approximately 40 Grunau Babay 2B-2 were mass-produced under licence from Germanyafter the War by the Air Workshops of Sevilla to fulfill orders from the Spanish Air Force

The Grunau Baby 2 was placed in production under licence by Slingsby Sailplanes as the Slingsby Type 5 in 1935. 15 were built at that time. 10 Grunau Babys were repaired or rebuilt during and just after the War. These were captured German Grunau Babys. Another 7 were built from 1935 by private individuals. Details of the above ware taken from Norman Ellison's book ÒBritish Gliders and Sailplanes 1922-1970Ó. BGA numbers and VT numbers can be obtained from that reference.During 1948 the firm of Elliott's of Newbury (EoN) built a modified Grunau Baby, known as their Type 8, or EoN Baby. 47 were built. This machine sometimes had dihedral, an elevator trim tab, landing wheel, and the later ones had straight fuselage backs, as had the Grunau Baby 1Õs. The total British Grunau Baby 2 production was therefore 69. One Grunau Baby 1 was built in 1934 by Desoutter, of the London Gliding Club. It was a very fine aircraft and much loved but failed to survive the war.

Schleicher Flugzeubebau started a small production of Grunau Baby 2Bs again, notably for the Dutch. The Grunau Baby 3, which had a more spacious cockpit than the 2B, enclosed by a canopy also went into production. The wings had no forward fuselage attachment point and are thus attached to the fuselage at only two points, instead of three. It must be mentioned that the Grunau Baby 3 originally flew during 1943/44 over the Wasserkuppe and received the RLM code 108-66. It was nothing like the postwar Grunau Baby 3 and as far as we know resembled a scaled down ES-49. It is understood that it had a two-wheeled undercarriage so that the pilots could practice 3 point landings.In Germany during the 1950s the Doppelraab, Cumulus and Grunau Baby 5 all had basic Grunau Baby wings, but were very different from the original design

Between 1951 and 1958 Grunau Baby production also continued with a total of 390 Grunau Baby 2Bs being built as follows :-

It is possible that the Lomatzsch production 2Bs had the new wings.

Assuming that in excess of 5000 is the rough total of Grunau Babys built all round the world, then this is a record production for any one type of glider.In the Netherlands

The Grunau Baby 2a gliders were made in Hungary iunder licence. Four Grunau Baby 2As were bought from Germany in 1944 by the Hungarian Railways "Sport Gliders"Association. One of these was burnt in Farkashegy and another one diappeared during the war. The other two remained damaged, but only HA-3107 was repaired. This glider crashed totally in 1952, because the airbrakes had been permanently opened. In spite of the serious damage, the pilot J‡nos M‡rkus, got out of the accident uninjured.

Grunau Baby 1s were entered in the 1933 Rhön Contest. They carried off no honours but created such a good impression that they were soon being built in German gliding clubs. In 1933 there was a major redesign resulting in the Grunau Baby 2. By increasing the span to 13.5m an increase of performance was gained without much weight or cost increase whilst the wing spars were increased from one to two.

One difference between a 2A and a 2B is that the wing ribs of the former are built complete and pass over the main spars. Thus the leading edge D-box stressed ply does not bear directly on the main wing spars, as it does on all other Grunau Baby variants. (Information from Eric Rolph).

The Grunau Baby 2 immediately hit the headlines, for on 3rd and 4th April 1933, Kurt Schmidt, who later became the champion of the Mü-13, flew over his native East Prussian sand dunes for 36hr 36min to establish a world duration record which stood officially until 1949, in spite of unofficial duration records of over 38hrs by Eric Nessler in a Spalinger S.18 over La Montagne Noire, France, 1942, and over 55Hr by Ernst Jachtmann in a Weihe in 1943, etc. Wartime records were not recognised by the FAI.

Any pilot who has flown a Grunau Baby for more than a few minutes, and a great many have used this machine for their Silver C 5hr test, must feel enormous respect for Kurt Schmidt's stamina. The seating position was bolt upright, the seat itself rudimentary, the rudder pedals were not adjustable, the cockpit on the earlier model was wide open and sometimes even without a windscreen.

At the 1933 Rhön Contest 33 Grunau Babys appeared, and at least one flight over 100km was achieved. The manufacturers were claiming that now one Grunau Baby 2 was leaving the workshop every three days.

Wolf Hirth adopted the Grunau Baby as the training glider for his soaring school at Grunau. It was a Grunau Baby that he used to explore the Moazagotl wave, and it was in a Grunau Baby that he crashed, attempting a loop from a fast run at ground level. He broke his leg and his pelvis. Probably he would have broken his other leg if he had had one, but he had lost that one in an aeroplane crash some years earlier.

Before the War Grunau Baby 2s became very popular. Unfortunately, Eric Collins, the first British Silver C pilot, after attending an aerobatics course in Germany, was killed in 1935 attempting an outside loop in a Grunau Baby at Sir Allen Cobham's Air Circus. At that time no one knew that outside loops should only be attempted in special aerobatic gliders. However, most pilots learned to glide painlessly in the Grunau Baby, thanks to its docile flying characteristicsIn 1939 a Grunau Baby broke the British height record. During June, Noel McLean flew a Grunau Baby to 11,140ft in the Helm wave. The Helm Wind is an easterly wind that pours down the 2000ft west slope of the Pennines. McLean contacted wave from a winch launch near Cross Fell at 12.40. During the 2hr flight he found himself floating in clear air at 11,000ft admiring a stupendous view of the west coast. The cold was terrible and all his controls were stiff and frozen. The wind speed was 40mph, and so his great problem was how to keep the Grunau Baby from drifting back into the sink of the wave, for then there would have been no way of getting back to the take-off point. Spins, sideslips, etc., were needed to bring the Grunau Baby down, for it had neither spoilers nor airbrakes, so strong was the lift. He held the record for only one month before it was broken again by Philip Wills in his Minimoa... 14,170ft in a thunderstorm near to Dunstable.

During the War about 100 Grunau Baby 2Bs were built under licence and were used for Air Force training, as in Germany. Before the Swedish licence-built JS Weihes gained the national records, they fell to Grunau Babys. They were as follows:Distance - 134km 27/1943 Gunnar Karlbom, from Alleborg to Faringe.Height   4,540m 13/6/43 Ake Gaevert.Our Swedish source, Allt om Hobby 3/76, says that other Babies managed distances of more than 300km, and 5000m height.We have no details of Nord 1300 performance in France, but we know of one Argentinean National Contest, shortly after the War, where Grunau Babys were flown by every competitor, the idea being that everyone should fly identical machines, and no other type was available in sufficient quantity. During the contest Grunau Babys carried out many flights of between 200 and 300kms.

In Australia

On 30/12/39 a Grunau Baby set a national height record of 5,300ft. There are still five Grunau Baby 2Bs on the Australian register as well as five later versions. We have been contacted by a gentleman in Australia, who intended to rebuild a Grunau Baby 1!

The story of the Grunau Baby is far from finished. Many are flying all over the world. During the last ten years many Grunau Babys have been restored to flying condition, and whilst they are no longer available on 'free transfer', the purchase price may well be far less than the cost of refurbishment.

Edmund Schneider died after his return to Germany from Australia in the 1950s. Wolf Hirth died of a heart attack during a flight in a Lo 150 over the Hornberg in 1959.

Grunau in Silesia is now called Jezow, and the Hirschberg, the mountain on which Grunau is situated, is called Jelenia Gora (Both mean Stag Mountain), as the whole of Silesia and Pomerania became part of Poland in 1945. Hanna Reitsch was born in Hirschberg. In fact, instructed by Wolf Hirth, she did almost all her early gliding in Grunau Babies. In 1935 she took her Grunau Baby to South America where it still remains in the Brazil.

In 1945 the Soviet Army took Grunau but the gliders were unharmed. Some were taken to Russia, but most were left for the Poles, who restarted gliding during 1945. Almost certainly, some of these gliders are now in the Polish Gliding Museum at Krakow. Others were also taken to Czechoslovakia with the permission of a Soviet officer.

Unfortunately, acting on high orders, retreating German troops burnt two large hangars and many superb sailplanes on the airfield at Hartau, in the valley below Grunau, to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy.

Peter Kirsten, who was CFI (Cheffluglehrer) at the Wasserkuppe in the early 70s, was instructing the Poles at Grunau in 1945. It is still a gliding site and it has been visited regularly by pilots from the Wasserkuppe.

Our member Werner Tschorn, who was there as a boy, provided information on the fate of the Reichssegelflugschule of Grunau in 1945.

Allan Ash reports, “The low flying speed of the Baby helped in soaring. At an airspeed of about 33 mph, it was easy to tuck into the core of a thermal or float along in no sink under a cloud or above a group of trees or a creek in the later afternoon.”

A disadvantage of the high lift aerofoil became evident when aerobatics were attempted. To achieve a really high speed in a Grunau Baby (say, above 50 mph) required a prolonged dive because the speed built up relatively slowly.

A simple wingover needed at least 60 mph to start with, otherwise there was not enough speed to complete a neat turn at the top of the climb. A loop called for 85 mph and a fairly rapid back stick to get the nose up quickly before the speed washed off.

Some pilots achieved the speed by a long shallow dive but I always preferred to start with a firm stick forward movement and a steep, short dive. It looked rather spectacular and it cost less height. This was important because in many instances we did our loops off the top of a winch launch to about 1000 ft.

Going over the top was sometimes scary as it had to be achieved very rapidly before the wing stalled. On several occasions I could clearly bear the pitter-patter of dust falling from the lower surface fabric of the wing to the inverted upper surface as I seemed to poise momentarily before the downward curve began.

I never actually stalled before going over the top but there were pilots who did. I remember an incident at Gawler about 1956 when Forbes Walker (whom many old ASC members will fondly remember) began a loop at about 1000 ft but on the upward curve he realised he didn’t have enough speed to get over the top, so he pushed the stick hard forward.

The resulting manoeuvre was a cross between a bunt and a tailslide. We all enjoyed the spectacle except Forbes.

Grunau Babies had a reputation for being unspinable, but while this was generally true, there were exceptions, which caused some unexpected frights. I tried several times to spin the Hinkler club Grunaus but, probably because they were nose heavy, they always turned into spiral dives. As soon as the nose dropped below the horizon the speed built up and the attempted spin had to be.”

From the above data it is clear that the semi-monocoque fuselages and stressed D-box wings save much weight. Flying speeds for max. L:D at about 25mph or 40kph can be expected.

It must be stressed that empty weights vary considerably between individual machines of the same type. One notes that at least the first EoN Baby was not heavy compared with other Grunau Babys