Ray Stits

Stits SA-3A Playboy
Canada's first amateur-built aircraft Stitts SA-3A Playboy C-FRAD at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum
Role	Amateur-built aircraft
National origin	United States
Designer	Ray Stits
First flight	1952
Introduction	1952
Unit cost	approximately $1750 to build in 1971
Variants	Van's Aircraft RV-3

The Stits SA-3A Playboy (also called the Stitts SA-3A Playboy) is a single seat, strut-braced low-wing monoplane that was designed by Ray Stits for amateur construction. The aircraft was designed and the prototype was completed in a three-month period during 1952. The design went on to become one of the most influential in the post-war boom in aircraft homebuilding.

A side-by-side two seat version is known as the SA-3B.

The Playboy was the third of fifteen different aircraft designs created by Stits, who migrated in the 1960s from selling plans to developing the Polyfiber line of aircraft coverings and related paint formulas.

The Playboy was designed to be constructed from either plans or from a series of partial kits. The construction is mixed with the fuselage made from welded steel and the wings built from wood. The aircraft is fabric-covered and incorporates a sliding canopy. The aircraft is unusual in that the low wings are strut-braced.

The engine range is from 85 to 160 hp (63 to 119 kW) with the 85 hp (63 kW) Continental C85 the most commonly used.

The first in the series of Van's Aircraft designed by Richard VanGrunsven, the Van's Aircraft RV-1 was a modified Playboy and directly led to the Van's Aircraft RV-3 and the highly successful RV line of aircraft.

Having been sold in 1955, the prototype Playboy passed through several owners' hands before being donated to the Experimental Aircraft Association. Ray Stits was the first member of Chapter 1. That plane is now in the EAA Airventure Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.