A new $50,000 contract is helping a Lawrence man’s business dreams take flight.

Rick Baker, owner of Baker Aviation Services, secured a deal this month to test the airworthiness and performance of the Bombardier Q400, a regional turboprop aircraft being outfitted to handle the additional role of aerial firefighter.

The contract is Baker’s 26th in this, his first full calendar year of business. Baker has taken in $150,000 in revenue so far this year, and plans for between $200,000 and $250,000 through 2005.

After that, he said the sky’s the limit.

“We’re getting so busy that I can’t handle all the engineering work myself,” said Baker, who hires consultants to help with the projects and plans to add at least one full-time staffer next year.

Baker’s work on the Q400 — a 30-ton, 70-seat plane — is part of testing and certification required on behalf of the French government, which is buying two of the planes for passenger, freight and firefighting uses.

Aero Union Corp. of Chico, Calif., has the contract to design and install the tank. Aero Union hired Baker to handle flight testing, which is done in Canada.

Each of the planes, as modified, would carry a storage tank for 2,640 gallons of fire retardant. The material would be carried and released into extreme conditions, such as billowing forest fires.

Baker and his fellow consultants intend to put the plane through its paces.

Rick Baker, owner of Baker Aviation Services, recently received a 0,000 contract to test a regional turboprop aircraft for Aero Union Corp., of Chico, Calif. Baker, a Kansas University graduate, was pictured Tuesday at Lawrence Municipal Airport.

“If we find any problems, we’ll fix those problems,” said Baker, who worked four years as a flight-test engineer for Bombardier in Wichita. “We’ll make sure this airplane can satisfy its mission.”

The work also has Baker mapping out his own business flight plan: The Kansas University engineering graduate hopes to hire as many as five engineers, one at a time, during the next few years to work in his office at 1311 Wakarusa Drive; after that, he might establish his own modifications business at Lawrence Municipal Airport.

A business for “making bits and pieces” easily could ramp up to 50 employees, he said, given industry demand driven by economic constraints and technological advances.

“With the economy like it is, people — instead of buying new airplanes — are modifying existing airplanes,” Baker said.

The emergence of cockpits featuring LCD displays on glass instrumentation panels in general-aviation aircraft also improves prospects for the modifications business, he said.

“It gives you the ability to monitor the aircraft systems better, and integrate systems more easily,” he said. “You can install traffic collision and avoidance equipment, and that can be done very quickly and easily.”