Wicked Old Birds Present Unique Flying Experience

There's nothing like the charismatic blend of vice, virtue, and vintage aircraft.

Friday, February 07, 2025 at 09:00 AM ET

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Instructor Joe Soligoy captured this image of Sam Weigel enjoying the fun of open-cockpit flying in a Stearman. [Courtesy: Sam Weigel and Joe Soligoy]

Key Takeaways:

The author describes his experience flying a 1943 Boeing-Stearman, noting its aerial simplicity but significant ground handling challenges due to poor visibility and twitchy landing gear.
The Stearman was intentionally designed to be a difficult aircraft to land during WWII to quickly identify pilots with natural aptitude for flight.
The author embraces the "vices" of vintage aircraft like the Stearman because their demanding imperfections actively challenge and sharpen his stick-and-rudder skills, making him a more complete pilot compared to flying easier, modern aircraft.

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to take several instructional flights in a 1943 Boeing-Stearman Model 75 (U.S. Navy designation N2S-3 Kaydet). This is my first formal training in anything of the biplane, open-cockpit, radial-engine, or warbird varieties, and it’s been a very interesting experience.

As World War II warbirds go, the Stearman is simple in the extreme, and there are no great procedural challenges to mastering the airplane. In the air, it is basically a big J-3 Cub, and as I have about a hundred hours in that venerable type, the control feel and response is comfortably familiar. Maneuvers and stalls are a joy, and takes all of about 10 minutes to learn well for anyone used to older ships with a lot of adverse yaw.