If you guys like the "feel" of this country airport and the wood & canvas spirit of free flight, I'd highly recommend you read the book, A Gift of Wings, by Richard Bach. He wrote this compilation of essays about experiences much like this video, and finding the difference between aviation and real flight. Years would pass and he came to write the seminal novel of freedom and excellence, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Ok the wings are there, but not the plane I soloed, Maybe another engine. Stearmans mounted many engines. I think this one was one of the less powerful. The one I flew in 1958 was rigged for a crop duster. If I remember correctly it had a Wright Whirlwind 17 cylinder rotary engine producing nearly 1200 HP. It sounded much more powerful than this vid. It would do over 100 mph in level flight and make the wing stay wires sing, the owner and pilot that trained me was a bit of a showboat He loved to scare the pants offa passengers with his aerobatics. He loved to dive it and pull out with the wheels brushing the treetops and the wing wires groaning with the strain. OLD quote......there are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are NO old Bold pilots. True enuf. He died flying under Hi Tension power lines and snagged one. Pulled down 3 big steel towers before he hit the ground. It was a spectacular explosion. Fuel and fertilizer combined to reduce the airplane to unrecognizable melted metal lumps of engine and not much else. The county coroner identified what was left of the pilot by 5 of his teeth. He was 37 yrs old. Later I flew other planes but never forgot that one.
