Bowlus BA-100 Baby Albatross, 1937. Creator: William H. Bowlus.
Single-seat, high-wing monoplane glider with wooden monocoque fuselage pod, aluminum tube tail boom, and wooden empennage; fabric-covered rudders and elevators and strut-braced wooden wings partially covered with fabric; hardware and fittings are cast aluminum. William Hawley Bowlus offered the BA-100 Baby Albatross as a series of builders kits advertised in popular magazines to pilots interested in affordable flying at a time when the money for such activities was hard to come by. The kits cost one-fifth the $2,500 asking price of the higher performance Bowlus-du Pont Senior Albatross (see NASM collection). Bowlus made parts for about 90 aircraft and sold between 40 and 60 kits before the start of World War II ended the program.