Warbird Information Exchange

After being part of the Rice Festival parade in Winnie, Texas this morning, a Stearman attempted to take of from state highway 124. He struck a portruding street light which appeared to cause him to veer into a large street sign striking it on the left wings. Luckily, the pilot walked away. The bird is damaged pretty bad, but she'll fly again. Saw it reported with film on the local(KPRC), 6pm news.

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He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
"In Peace Japan Breeds War", Eckstein, Harper and Bros., 3rd ed. 1943(1927, 1928,1942)
"Leave it to ol' Slim. I got ideas...and they're all vile, baby." South Dakota Slim
"Ahh..."The Deuce", 28,000 pounds of motherly love." quote from some Mojave Grunt
DBF

I think I saw it flying around about 10 miles north of Hooks airport last week.Is that a private a/c or a CAF a/c?

Correction, after knocking the lamp off the pole it became entangled in the traffic light lines and never touched the billboard. There's a short vid closeup from a passing car of the Stearman on its back on the median with the wrecker truck. There doesn't seem to be any CAF ID. Trainer yellow, blue rudder, Navy markings, with a 175 buzz number. The res isn't sharp enough for me to read the N# on the fin in front of N2S-3 on the rudder.

Edit: N2S-3

_________________
He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
"In Peace Japan Breeds War", Eckstein, Harper and Bros., 3rd ed. 1943(1927, 1928,1942)
"Leave it to ol' Slim. I got ideas...and they're all vile, baby." South Dakota Slim
"Ahh..."The Deuce", 28,000 pounds of motherly love." quote from some Mojave Grunt
DBF

I don't thin k the airplane will fly again. It damaged/ruined the prop, engine, landing gear, all the wings and fuselage. Unknown damage to the tail. Stearmans are available so why wouldn't they just use their insurance check to buy another one?

Duplicate post.

Granted I'm not a licensed pilot, but all I can think of is how stupid the pilot was to try take off from that location. He's lucky he didn't kill himself. Unfortunately a nice vintage airplane was destroyed.

I don’t know, what do I know, I only served 25 years in the RCAF/CAF, a good portion as a flight safety facilitator.

How in the name of God did he even get clearance/approval to attempt this? Every accident is always a chain of events, break any of the links in that chain and the accident doesn’t occur.

This wasn’t a wise choice, too many obstacles in the way. Who authorized the road closure? Poor judgement all around. This is beyond words.

It'll fly again. Maybe not with him (which given the judgment shown may not be a bad thing) but it's not hopeless. You have to pretty much burn a Stearman to kill it.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

There’s no argument in saying how stupid this is . Funny yesterday I was at Chino thinking of Ralph Royce when he was on the Warbird Radio podcast a few years ago. “ Don’t Do Nothin Dumb! “

There’s another video view of it. He made a running turn out of a parking lot, ran off the road into the median before he got it off the ground. Doesn’t look like any more than 1200 to 1500 feet to the road block and power lines.

Steve

Do you have a link to that video Steve? I gotta see dat!!!

The following link is of the video shot from a phone of the passing car I mentioned above. It's 1.5 minutes long. Skip ahead to the 1minute 15 point to get a look at the fin with the N#. Mebbee ya'lls eyes are better than mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PkBmhFn-us

_________________
He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
"In Peace Japan Breeds War", Eckstein, Harper and Bros., 3rd ed. 1943(1927, 1928,1942)
"Leave it to ol' Slim. I got ideas...and they're all vile, baby." South Dakota Slim
"Ahh..."The Deuce", 28,000 pounds of motherly love." quote from some Mojave Grunt
DBF

Link please?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

"Hey y'all, hold my beer and watch this!"

Another view...
https://www.facebook.com/noah.callahan. ... 988786728/