2-839-555 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Pusher biplane with one 50-horsepower Maximotor B-4 four-cylinder engine. Very similar in layout to the Curtiss Model D "Headless Pusher" of the same time period. Fabric covering yellow, airframe red. After making a reputation with lighter-than-air craft, Thomas Scott Baldwin turned to heavier-than-air flying machines in 1909. By 1911 he had built several airplanes and had gained extensive experience as an exhibition pilot. He began testing a new airplane in the spring of 1911. It was similar to the basic Curtiss pusher design that was becoming quite popular with builders by this time, but it was innovative in that it had steel-tube structural components. It was powered by a 60-horsepower Hall-Scott V-8. Baldwin called his new machine the Red Devil III, and thereafter each of his airplanes would be known as a Baldwin Red Devil. Baldwin built approximately six Red Devils. Most were powered by the Hall-Scott, but Curtiss engines were also occasionally used. By mid-1911, Baldwin was training pilots, taking up passengers, and performing regularly with Red Devil aircraft at air meets. He advertised Red Devils for sale into 1913.