Quote:
Originally Posted by Joeaksa
Larry,
Friend of mine had something like 20 Stearmans in the family spraying business. His Father bought them after WW2 for next to nothing and put them to work. Finally as they became worth something he sold them off and retired, but sure is a fun flying plane. Landing is "sporty" but then so are a lot of other short coupled taildraggers.
Just finished the annual on mine today. Cannot wait to take it up and let it teach me some more about flying!  |
Yep, same story here. Old local guy told me he bought 10 after the war for something like $2000 apiece, flew them as sprayers or dusters for 20 years, still had 9 left and sold them for $4000 each. After the war my dad bought a PT19 and a Stearman (PT17?) for $500 each. Remember hearing some of the old heads saying they bought the really big planes just to get the gas out of them and scrapped the rest of the plane. I was given a A20 bomber when I was a teenager but my daddy said it wasn't worth going to get. Probably worth millions today. Who could have foreseen the value these things would rise too.