Specialty Press

Stearman Aircraft: A Detailed History

by  Edward H. Phillips

Reviewed By  Brian R. Baker, IPMS# 43146

The Story Nearly every avid aviation historian, modeler, collector, pilot, and mechanic is familiar with the name Stearman, who, of course, was the innovative pioneer of American aviation whose name is associated with the famous "Stearman" biplanes of the thirties and forties. However, the story goes much deeper than that, and the purpose of this book is to sort out the fact from fiction, and outline the historical developments of the Stearman Company and separate it from the achievements of its founder, Lloyd Stearman. Beginning with his association with Matty Laird, and later with the Travelair Company, which included such notables as Walter Beech and Clyde Cessna, Stearman steadily gained experience as an aircraft designer, and eventually established his own company, located in California, in 1926. He later was enticed back to Wichita, and built airplanes there until the company was merged with the United Aircraft Corporation, read Boeing, and soon afterward, in 1931, Stearman left the company and returned to California. Subsequent designs, which were always known as "Stearmans", were merely products of the Stearman Division of Boeing-Wichita. Stearman pursued a different course, becoming involved in the management of the Northrop Corporation, the Lockheed Company, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Stearman-Hammond Project, and several industrial firms in the Los Angeles area. Postwar, Stearman was involved in the development of agricultural aircraft, becoming influential in the development of the "Stearman" World War II biplane trainers as dusters and sprayers. Later, Stearman rejoined Lockheed, where he was involved in work on the Constellation and the F-104 jet fighter. In the late sixties, Stearman retired, but was soon involved in the development of an agricultural aircraft which, unfortunately, was never built, due to his death in 1975. The story of the Stearman Company is somewhat different. Stearman was associated with the company until the early thirties, after which various biplanes were produced for air mail contractors. In 1934, a prototype for a military trainer was produced, the Model 70, which evolved into the legendary Model 75, which was produced throughout World War II and which trained thousands of pilots for the Allied war effort. Stearman also produced a few experimental models, all of these known as Stearmans, even though they were officially Boeings. At the end of World War II, the Boeing takeover was complete, and no further airplanes were produced under the name "Stearman" Although a few Model 4 and Model 6 Stearman mailplanes survived into the fifties and sixties, mainly as agricultural aircraft, the most common Stearman biplanes during that period were the thousands of Model 75's which were sold surplus to private owners. When the average pilot found out that they were not economical to operate for private flying, most wound up in the hands of duster and sprayer companies, who operated them up until the late sixties, when they were eventually replaced by "purpose-built" agplanes, such as the Snows, Piper Pawnees, Grumman Ag-Cats, and Air Tractors. These airplanes were extensively rebuilt, with longer wings, new engines, mainly 450 hp. R-985 radials, and large hoppers and tanks in the front cockpits. Strangely, when these aircraft became uneconomical to operate, it didn't spell the end of the Model 75's. The Warbird movement led to many of these aircraft being converted back to original configuration, where they can be seen in fairly large numbers at EAA and AAA fly-in's. Given their numbers, and the quality of restoration evident in these aircraft, they will probably still be flying long after most of us are gone. The Book Phillips does a great job of telling the stories of Stearman's life and of the Stearman Company. The narrative is very readable, and although I was relative familiar with the story, I must admit that I learned a great deal from the text. The photos are sharp, well reproduced, and well selected to illustrate the people, the airplanes, and the plant facilities where they were built. There is a lot of material here for both the modeler and the historian, and I will use some of it to make some Stearman kit conversions I have been thinking about for a long time. The organization is logical, with chapters devoted to various time periods, along with explanations of the external factors, such as the Depression and World War II, which affected the development of the firm. In short, the events make sense, and the detail in which they are describes is very impressive. This is the best work I have seen on the subject, and this book belongs in the library of every historian and modeler who is interested in the Stearman airplanes. Problems As with any text of this nature, there are a few problems. Coverage of the postwar use of Stearman aircraft exists mainly in the photo section at the end, even though Stearman was directly involved in this process. There were some three view drawings presented, but these had already been published in a book entitled The Stearman Guidebook, published in 1974, so there was nothing new here. However, since this publication is probably long out of print, these may be new for most readers. There was no series of line drawings showing the development of various Stearman models, and more particularly, how to tell them apart. A series of color profiles would have also been useful to modelers. The black and white photos in the text, while not always immediately adjacent to the coverage in the text, were of exceptional quality, and nearly all had never been published before. The color section, however, was somewhat of a disappointment to me, as only a few actually dated back to World War II. Most were photos of various restored Stearmans taken at fairly recent fly-in's, although there were a number of photos of active agricultural aircraft from the fifties and sixties. I know that numerous color photos of Stearmans were taken during the war, and some of the more exotic color schemes, such as the recall aircraft, would have been extremely useful to modeler's intent on recreating these aircraft in scale. There is one glaring goof in aircraft identification. On page 27, an aircraft is illustrated titled the Hammond Y, a small single engined pusher which Lloyd Stearman helped redesign into a 'safety plane" in the late 1930's. The aircraft shown, however, is a small twin engined prototype, actually the American Gyro Crusader, X-14429, only one of which was built, and which is totally unrelated to the Stearman story. There is no photo of the Stearman Hammond Y-1S, which is unusual, since there are plenty of photos of this aircraft available - even I could have provided one had I been asked! Also, there is no actual photo of the Hammond Y. Recommendation Although nothing is ever perfect, this book is probably as good as we will get for a long time, and it is certainly worth getting. It will be very useful to historians and modelers alike, and the black and white photos alone are worth the purchase price. I would highly recommend it to IPMS members and general readers alike. Thanks to Specialty Press for the review copy. The book can be obtained from Specialty Press, 39966 Grand Avenue, North Branch, MN, 55056 (1-800-895-4585) (Fax: 651-277-1203) for $39.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Order one today.

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