Ray Stits

"[1] Stits served as an aircraft mechanic in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War.

In 1992, Stits sold the company to Jon Goldenbaum, but it remains based at Flabob Airport.

The aircraft was the world's smallest monoplane at the time and was designed as the result of a discussion at Kellogg Field in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1948, about whether it would be possible to design an airplane with a wingspan smaller than Steve Wittman's racer's 13 ft (4.0 m) span.

Instead in 1953, he designed the much more conventional Stits Playboy, as an aircraft that low-experience pilots could safely fly.

[2] The Stits SA-11A Playmate was designed in response to an EAA challenge to create a trailerable aircraft.