Stearman SP-YWW
Year built
1941
Aircraft
N2S-3 Kaydet
Base
Krakow-Pobiednik Wielki Airfield
This Exact Stearman left the Boeing production plant in 1941 as an N2S-3 and was taken on Strength with the United States Navy with Bureau Number 3427 later that year and served in multiple Air Bases in Hutchinson (Kansas), Dallas (Texas), Bunker Hill (Indiana) and Corpus Christi (Texas).
In 1946 the Stearman was retired from the US Navy and handed over to the War Assets Administration where it remained in storage for a number of months before being put up for sale. A few months later the aircraft was sold to Desota Flying Service where it received a civilian registration N65020 and was converted to a crop-dusting aircraft for agricultural work, it received a chemical tank, a more powerful engine and a metal propeller.
After several years of agricultural work, consisting of spraying fields in the vicinity of Houston, the plane was purchased by pilot Elmer M. Harms - a World War II veteran. Elmer Harms performed 30 combat missions on the B-24 Liberator during World War II, and also spent 6 months in Hawaii, flying the P-39 Air Cobra. When selling the plane to another owner, Elmer was exactly 100 years old.
In 2009, the next owner, Thomas Newell, began a 3-year complete renovation of the aircraft, which consisted of engine overhaul, replacement of wing elements, and installation of new electrical, fuel and brake installations. The plane received a new outer skin, and all airframe elements were replaced with new ones or reconstructed according to historical documentation.
In November 2013, the plane was purchased by the current owners. A specialist company from Chicago dismantled and prepared the Stearman for transport in a container. In the spring of 2014, the container arrived in Poland and the Stearman received a new civil registration SP-YWW. On April 25th, a test flight was performed and the Stearman was registered as the oldest aeroplane in the Polish Register of Aircraft.
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Boeing-Stearman Model 75
The Stearman (Boeing) is a biplane formerly used as a military trainer aircraft, of which at least 10,626 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Stearman Aircraft became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known as the Stearman, Boeing Stearman, or Kaydet, it served as a primary trainer for the United States Army Air Forces, the United States Navy (as the NS and N2S), and with the Royal Canadian Air Force as the Kaydet throughout World War II. After the conflict was over, thousands of surplus aircraft were sold on the civilian market. In the immediate postwar years, they became popular as crop dusters and sports planes, and for aerobatic and wing walking use in air shows.
The Kaydet was a conventional biplane of rugged construction, with a large, fixed tailwheel undercarriage, and accommodation for the student and instructor in open cockpits in tandem. The radial engine was usually not cowled, although some Stearman operators choose to cowl the engine, most notably the Red Baron Stearman Squadron.
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