The Stearman Logbook

Civilian life. 1945 - 1949.

Boeing Stearman Model N2S-4, serial number 75-3250, Navy ID# 27975 was built in May of 1942 and delivered to the Navy to train aviator cadets. She mustered out of the U.S. Navy in 1945, and on November 29th, 1945 was sold into life #2 as a civilian, to Mr. Joe D. Bailey of Wichita Falls Texas. Mr. Bailey, who was just 25 at the time, paid $686.50 for the airplane. Joe registered the airplane in January of 1946, and she was re-covered in new linen and painted in civilian colors. She had Continental engine number 26870, and a Sensenich prop.
About one year later in February of 1947, Bailey sold the airplane, now registered as N59222, to Martin Gellert of Abilene Kansas who we can assume flew the airplane for another two years until March of 1949.
This was to be the last time the former Kaydet could be called a stock airplane. Life number 3 began as Gellart sold the airplane to Ken West and Virgil Geiser of Wichita Kansas. Their first act was to take the bird to Rawdon for the installation of a Rawdon Crop Spraying system. The system was approved in April of 1949, and N99222 was now a working duster for the Red Devil Spraying Service. At this time she still had her original Continental engine.

Life as a Duster. 1949 - 1959.

After being fitted with spraying equipment, N59222 worked for Red Devil Spraying until June of 1953.
In 1953 serial number 75-3250 was given foreign tail number YS-76, and sold to Cooperativa Algodonero Salvadoriana (Salvadorian Cotton Cooperative) along with several other Boeing Stearman. Of eight Stearman sold that day to begin a life of toil and torment in El Salvador, only one would survive. At the time she left the U.S., she still had the original Continental engine with an accumulated 1,895 hours, and the airframe had over 2,482 hours. She was in airworthy condition and was registered in the Standard airworthiness category.
In the late 1980s, El Salvador had a large number of airfields. Of the country's 138 airfields, 95 were usable, but of these, only 5 were paved.

Back in the U.S.A. 1959 - 1960.

Vivian Dalton in Williams California, near Stockton, purchased a number of Stearman duster parts from an outfit called Aero Dusters in November of 1959, specifically a fuselage frame bearing serial number 75-3250. It is unknown who or what Aero Dusters was, but the bill of sale may have been signed by a Roger Bailey for Aero Dusters. At this point in time Dalton acquired the tail number of N7740C. By September of 1960 Dalton had assembled and licensed to fly N7740C as a 450 Pratt & Whitney powered duster for Dalton Flying Service. They had "purchased fuselage, wings and tail group from various sources as salvage", built new wings, metalized the fuselage, installed a fiberglass hopper and a modified tailwheel fork, and installed a Pratt & Whitney R-985 AN-3 450 horsepower engine "from a previously licensed aircraft" on a Serv-Aero mount. The engine was serial number 9694. At this time the airframe was zero-timed, and the engine had a total of 1039.2 hours.

Working in California. 1960 - 1977.

N7740C working with Medlock Dusters in 1964. Photo Wm. T. Larkins

Less than one year after Dalton assembled N7740C, she was sold to Harold Medlock of Medlock Dusters in Davis California. Title of the airplane passed to Medlock Dusters from Harold Medlock in 1962. Medlock was a large agricultural spraying and dusting operation until at least the 1980's.

The photo at the top of this page was taken in 1964 in Davis California while N7740C was plying her trade as a working duster. You can see the aluminum center section, metalized sides, huge hopper in the front cockpit, and the R-985 hung on the front.

In addition to President Harold Medlock, Medlock Dusters was owned and managed by Gene F. Franscioni until 1975. He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II as a lieutenant colonel with the 101st Airborne as a pilot. He participated in the D-Day invasion of Europe, and while in the service he received the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Medlock Dusters operated out of Medlock Field (69CL), just north of Davis.

After about 4 years of service, in 1966 Medlock dusters found reason to sell N7740C to Alaska Transportation in San Jose California, my home town. She spent the next few years until November of 1969 on the roles Alaska Transportation until being sold to a group formed by Donald Dinkins, Raymond Woodmansee, and Raymond Cannella doing business as Flite Line, in Porterville California. There are no maintenance records during the time with Alaska Transportation, and apparently Alaska Transportation was not an aircraft operator, but a clearing house for buying, selling, and financing aircraft.
It is likely that while working with Medlock, N7740C was either damaged or run-out and placed with Alaska Transportation for sale. Sort of an outplacment firm for tired, old dusters.

In October of 1969 while still under the ownership of Alaska, a new engine was installed on N7740C by Ray Woodmansee, however the work was not approved until August of 1971. He installed serial number 8308, Pratt & Whitney R-985. After the engine was installed in October of 1969, title transferred to Flite Line.
On December 4th, 1970 N7740C was involved in an accident. The damage was listed as substantial, and occurred at Terra Bella, California, just south of Porterville.
While being piloted by a 42 year old, commercial rated pilot with 8,500 total hours, and 2,500 hours in type, on an orchard spraying job, the Stearman got it's spray boom entangled in some high brush, and ended up nose down in the soft runway on landing.
The pilot indicated that he had performed 2 previous wheel landings, and on the third time he performed a three point landing which caused the spray boom to catch in high grass and brush. The terrain was described as level, and flat, but dense with trees.
After having been with Flite Line for a few years, she was sold yet again in 1973 to Roland Van Fossen in Visalia, California.
In August of 1973, in Porterville, N7740C yet again succumbed to the indignity of fate that stalked most dusters and sprayers. She was involved in another accident, this time on a ferry flight.
Few specifics are provided in the NTSB report, except that the commercial rated pilot with 20 hours in type, ground looped the aircraft, and ended up nose-down yet again. Apparently the accident occurred during a downwind landing roll, and the damage was again listed as substantial.
After this accident N7740C was probably put aside as a bone yard donor until we find the "fuselage only" appearing on a major repair approval form in July of 1976. At that time various patches and repairs were made to the fuselage frame, permitting #75-3250 to yet again ply the duster trade.

Van Fossen operated N7740C from 1973 until June of 1977 when he sold the worn old bird to David Pechan in Stockton.

At this point in time, the airplane was configured with a 450 hp engine, no electrical system, a 100 gallon fiberglass hopper in the front cockpit area, metalized fuselage, BT-13 wheels, brake master cylinders from an old pickup truck, modified center section with heads-up gauges, modified tail wheel, and squared-off wing tips. Dave Pechan reports that she flew real well when empty, and had a maximum speed of about 95 MPH.

The End of Life #3 as a Duster. 1978 - 1991.

After having been wrung out financially by a Cessna Agwagon disaster, Dave Pechan scrounged up this tired old Stearman with which to make a living. The airplane immediately begged for retirement when it forced Dave to make 4 dead-stick landings in less than a one-year time period. This was not a reliable engine.

Finally, on Friday February 3rd, 1978, a dry day when temperatures ran about 48 degrees F., N7740C appears for a third time on an NTSB accident report. The report states that N7740C was departing from Orvis Ranch, in Farmington California, west of Stockton, for a local fertilizer dusting flight. The actual airstrip was on a ranch about 3-4 miles east of Farmington, on the south side of Hiway 4, and ran north/south.
There was a power loss on takeoff, and the aircraft collided with the fence at the end of the runway. The probable cause of the power loss was indicated as the fuel tank. Contributing factors were listed as "miscellaneous acts and conditions - ran off the end of the runway".

Further information on the report indicates a total time in crop control service as 1700 hours, and it was loaded with dry, non-toxic fertilizer chemicals. The pilot used a crash helmet and goggles. The pilot (Dave Pechan) was not fatally hurt. He was 26 years old at the time, had 1700 total hours, 100 of which were in type. He held a commercial and flight instructor certificate, and no instrument rating. The aircraft was destroyed in this accident.

Years later, Dave added some info to the report. In previous dead-stick landings, the engine had inexplicably quit, only to return to health the next day, for no apparent reason. The carburetor had been disassembled and checked, and yet the engine continued to be unreliable. Reliable or not, you still have to get up and go to work in the morning as long as the airplane runs.
The fence at the end of the dirt strip was barbed wire, and caused the airplane to tumble over, and spin so that airplane and pilot slid backwards at a high rate of speed in the muddy field before coming to a stop, upside down and backwards.

Helmet and structural integrity save the pilot from anything more than a stiff neck the next day, but the plane was written off by the insurance company.

Dave explains that even then, round engine expertise was hard to come by. He believes now that the engine was suffering from a sticking intake valve, which caused the engine to die from fuel starvation as the supercharger pushed all the fuel through the path of least resistance. When the engine cooled, and the valve returned to it's normal position, all was well again - for a while.

In 1987 Frank Sylvestri purchased what remained of N7740C, and stowed those bones until I purchased them in 1991.

Photo on the right from D. Pechan, taken in Farmington after 1978 accident.
Damage is not apparent here, but the frame is severly broken.

A Retired Working Girl. 1991 -

So, N7740C has had at least 13 caretakers since leaving her first life as military trainer in 1945. Unlike the pristine, coveted, coddled, and well-cared for Stearman Kaydets that had never been a duster in their careers, serial number 75-3250 had been a hard working duster from at least 1949 through 1978: almost 30 years of severe, back breaking work that had sent many thousands of other Stearman dusters to the scrap heap. She survived at least three accidents that would have terminated the life of any less fortunate airframe.

It's tough to tell exactly what remains of the original aircraft that left the factory as one airplane. It's certain that the 7 years spent off the US records while in El Salvador muddy the whole continuity. What I do know is that when I got the airplane in 1991, at least the data plate attached to the rear control quadrant still had the serial number intact, and it looked every day of its 49 years of age. Most of the sub-assemblies on a Stearman have an identification tag riveted in place. I have the ID tags for the fuselage frame, center section, and the horizontal stabilizer. At least one of those original ID tags came to me by pure, unadulterated serendipity

In the photo shown above taken in 1964, it is clear that the original center section had been replaced by a utilitarian duster component. Who knew when and where the original center section got separated from the original airframe? There were over 8,000 Stearman produced and another 2,000 or so in spare parts. Over 4,000 of those were pressed into duster service in the U.S. alone. If you wanted to find any one particular component that had been removed and replaced during an airplane's service life, it could be a real needle-haystack situation.

Stearman aircraft and their parts are located all over the U.S. in various states of repair. Over 2,000 exist on the FAA register, and you can assume another 1,000 or so in parts, un-registered. One day I received a telephone call from one of those other Stearman restorer's saying he had something interesting for me. He was building a Stearman in Ohio and among some of his accumulated parts was a worn out, old stock wooden center section assembly from which he had removed the original ID tag before cannibalizing the non-wood components.
Using the public FAA records, he looked up the current owner assigned to the serial number that appeared on the ID tag taken from the center section spar. Yes, that person was me, the serial number was 75-3250, and I now have the original tag.

It may well be true that when 75-3250 was returned from El Salvador, she (or her remains) was bought by Aero Dusters who in turn parted out the components. The fuselage including the paperwork went to Vivian Dalton in 1960. For whatever reason she did not acquire the center section which was sold later, ending up later in Ohio.
Somehow fate worked to re-unite the parts that left the factory in 1942, 50 years and goodness knows how many miles and air-hours later!

In a sense, N7740C is a tribute to the working people and airplanes that powered American agriculture until purpose-built, and corporate farming took over in the early 1980's. Already by 1978, N7740C's role as a duster was obsoleted by other aircraft meant for the role, but she soldiered on to the last.

Life as a duster was neither glorious nor romantic, and as often as not was fatal for pilot and airplane.
Repairs were done only when necessary, and the airplane was treated more like a pickup truck or a tractor than anything else. Some of the remaining repairs and installations I found in 1991 attest to the scrappy, cheap, tough, rough, and make-do treatment reserved for a working duster.

Her role in life number 4 as a sport aircraft now is fitting retirement. Today she flies over the same California fields where she once worked long and tiring days, these days just for the pure pleasure of flying.

Back in her dusting and spraying days, all the extra power was needed to lug a huge load of chemicals as she dove and turned, just on the edge of safety, day-in and day-out. Now the big engine, and the colorful fabric have given N7740C a life as a girl of leisure, which she surely deserves.

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