‘Someday’

In 1973, Dick Reade and the team at Mid-Continent Maintenance Division (MCMD) tore her down and did a full reconstruction, number 24 in a long line of incomparable Stearman aircraft. Then she was sold, bought again, sold again, retrofitted with a Serv-Aero STCed R985, bought, and sold again. Ultimately, she ended up back at MCMD in Hayti, Missouri, as Reade’s personal Stearman. Around 2000, Reade and his team, realizing she needed work, tore her down again and in 2002 finished what amounted to another rebuild or more accurately an IRAN (inspect, repair as necessary).

Meanwhile back in 1973, a 16-year-old boy learning to fly in a Super Cub landed at Kobelt Airport (N45) in Wallkill, New York. Parked on the east side of the hangar was a bright red Stearman biplane known as Big Red. It was the coolest airplane and the only Stearman he’d ever seen. Diamond treaded tires, leather combing, and a stunning wooden prop. The open cockpit called out to him. Someday, he thought.

In the subsequent 27 years, the teenager—me—grew up to fly gliders, towplanes, F–16s, and airliners among other aircraft. I learned a bit, scared myself a few times…but I never forgot that day at Kobelt. I never forgot Big Red.

Along the way I’d looked at a few Stearman aircraft, but with a young family it was not to be. Then there was an ad in Trade-A-Plane. I climbed into my 1949 Beechcraft Bonanza along with my teenage son and flew up to Hayti. Reade walked us into the hangar and there she was glistening under the hangar lights. It wasn’t Big Red, but this airplane was gorgeous. Reade knew we were coming back; 75-553 would have a new home. A few months later, Reade checked me out and sent me on my way. Three landings on the grass and that was it. Yup, that was it. I didn’t know anything about radial engines. I didn’t know anything about biplanes. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I knew it had been 30 years since I’d first seen Big Red.

The airplane was straight and honest. Hands off, there was no rolling tendency. She was well balanced, although with 1,000 pounds forward of the firewall she was nose heavy. In the world of aerobatics we talk about hidden corners, places where the airplane doesn’t always respond the same way. The Stearman didn’t have any. When I messed up a maneuver, she told me the same thing she told me the last time: “Don’t do that!”

The aircraft, structurally, is a stock airframe. Single landing wire, single ailerons, original control stop settings, all with a great big engine and propeller out front. That translates into heavy aileron forces, smooth elevator, and an incredible rudder. She’ll take off inside a football field rotating around the tailwheel. The rudder is so effective that knife-edge slips on final are no problem, and she’ll drop like a rock. She’ll climb at well more than 1,000 fpm, and while her original service ceiling with the stock engine is around 12,000 msl, she’s happy to climb up to 14,000 feet. She’d keep going if I had oxygen and a snowmobile suit. An R985 likes to drink, though, and she never met a gas pump she didn’t like. Low-power cruise made 20 gph and 100 knots. Five miles per gallon. Easy flight planning.

If the wind was favorable on a cross-country trip, I’d climb until I couldn’t stand the cold. If the winds were bad, I’d be as low as legally possible. With only an hour and a half of range, climbing was always limited.

A few months after I brought her home, I received a call from a friend for whom I’d flown co-pilot on the Boeing 757. He and his team were airshow performers and would be practicing at what is now Atlanta Speedway Airport (HMP). He suggested I bring over the Stearman. His first comment was, “You are going to do shows with that, aren’t you?”

I didn’t know anything about flying airshows. As pretty as she was and with the heritage she had, though, I knew we were going into show business.

Practice, practice, practice. Eventually, the loops got round, the rolls got level, as level as they can be with a Stearman, and the hammerheads got awesome.

The R985 spinning a nine-foot prop makes an incredible sound. She’ll make smoke like nobody can, and in a Stearman she’ll do a loop in about 700 feet. In fact, the entire airshow routine, loops, rolls, hammers, and humpties were all below 1,000 feet agl. She’d have to climb to fly in the traffic pattern.

In the past 22 years and 130,000 miles, 75-553 and I have flown the Hudson, the Blue, the Green, the Red, the Mississippi, the Colorado, the Columbia, and a few more rivers. She’s flown past mounts Hood, Rainier, St. Helens, Glacier Peak, Pikes Peak, the Cascades, Rockies, Superstitions, Appalachians, Smokies, Adirondacks, and more. She’s flown Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the Tetons. She flew dogfights against the Red Baron and for 10 years flew dissimilar formation with a Christen Eagle and a Pitts. Her greatest feat, though, was the unofficial world record for the highest airshow ever performed. She launched from Leadville, Colorado, 30 miles from the show site crossing over 10 Mile Range through a saddleback at around 12,500 feet. She rolled into the aerobatic performance box from 13,500 feet over Imperial Bowl at the Breckenridge ski area on July 4, 2012. The whole show was above 10,500 feet. You’d have to be a little crazy to ask a 70-year-old biplane to fly an airshow where the density altitude is above 13,000 feet. She just smiled and said, “Why not?”

She flew shows to raise money for children’s cancer research. She flew shows for U.S. Army soldiers who had just returned from a Middle East deployment. She flew shows for the Marines, the Navy, and the Air Force and mostly she flew shows for the next generation of aviators, for the kids who like 16-year-old me, said, “someday,” and “can I learn to do that?”

A friend once told me that we don’t own classic warbirds, we’re merely caretakers. There comes a time when it’s someone else’s turn to be the caretaker. That time is now. At nearly 83 years young, 75-553 has found a new caretaker, and she’s hopping on a ship to head down-under where she’ll bring smiles to the next generation. Fair skies and favorable winds. Our paths diverge but our journeys continue.

Gary Rower began flying at age 16 in the Super Cub. He flew airshows for 22 years in his Stearman and is now in Colorado flying his Husky in the backcountry while also competing in STOL competitions.