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The photos were stun-ning, but I didn’t re-call ever seeing them in the magazine be-fore. During a Wis-consin snowstorm I

found myself surfing the EAA photo department’s computer and noticed the photos were taken a few years back, at the Sun ’n Fun Interna-tional Fly-In & Expo, depicting two Stearmans in formation during a Florida sunrise.

One was U.S. Army Air Corps blue and yellow, and the other was U.S. Navy yellow with an orange stripe.

They were both gorgeous and well-maintained, but it was the yellow one that caught my eye. I found the owner’s info and called him. It was an interesting phone call to say the least, and went something like this.

“Hello? Tim Kirby here. How can I help you?” “Nope. No one has done a story on my Stearman before. Tell you what, why don’t we meet at Sun ’n Fun? I’ll have the Stearman there, parked right behind the tiki bar.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “did you say T-hangar?”

“Nope, it’s a tiki bar, just look for the tiki torches and the pink flamin-

gos; you can’t miss us.”And that’s how I ended up meeting

Tim Kirby, his award-winning Stear-man, and the Coconut Flyers of Ocala, Florida.

Following inMy Father’s Footsteps

According to Tim, he lays all the blame for his Stearman addictions on his father, Carl W. Kirby. In 1941 Carl was a World War II Army Air Corps Stearman mechanic stationed in Douglas, Georgia, and a private pilot.

“Some of the Army Stearman pi-lots found out my dad had his private

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ticket,” said Tim, “So the maintenance flights the pilots were supposed to do fell into the lap of my father. I don’t think he ever complained about it!

“Growing up I had a love for the Stearmans at a very early age. I was only 3 or 4 years old when my dad would take me to air shows around Florida, and I remember him telling me not only what the various airplanes were but what the differences were and what to look for between a PT-13 and a PT-17—it was hard core for a young-ster, but so cool! My father eventually went on to become a professional flight engineer and ended up retiring from Pan Am. I’ve been around airplanes all my life now all because of him.”

Tim began flying a Cessna 150 at age 15, and followed in his father’s foot-steps by becoming a mechanic’s helper at 16 for several shops in his hometown of Sebring, Florida. At some point in his early flying days he tried to con his father into buying the 150.

“My dad agreed to go in halves with me and came over to look at it,” he recalled. “Unfortunately my boss, Charlie Carter, said it’s not for sale—even though there was a for sale sign hanging on it. Instead Charlie was trying to push me toward a beat-up, ratty-looking Cessna 120 that he had for sale and said, ‘You need to buy the 120, Tim.’ I scratched my head and tried to tell him I’ve never f lown a tailwheel airplane before.”

“Well the 150 is not for sale,” Char-lie said, “at least to you, but I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse and sell you the 120 for 2,200 bucks—half the price of the 150—and it will include a tailwheel checkout!”

“My dad nudged me to take it,” Tim said, “so I did, and that’s how I became

Tim’s Dad, Carl W. KirbyAbove, Tim and his

daughter, Jillian

infected with tailwheel airplanes. I’ve been flying them ever since, and I can’t stay out of them!”

Tim soon found himself working in the aircraft restoration business for M.A.R.R.S aircraft (Major Air-frame and Rebuilding Station), build-ing custom aircraft in Lake Placid, Florida, where he earned his airframe and powerplant mechanic certificate in 1980. Tim also acquired his pilot certificates through multiengine in-strument, seaplane. Tim eventually attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and graduated in 1983.

“My first job was in Chino, Cali-fornia, where I flew night freight in

Convair 440s,” said Tim. “I was a full-time co-pilot, part-time mechanic. We had a full-time mechanic—he was 22,

I was 23. We had the bare essentials to maintain and fly two Convairs, and the guys at Planes of Fame and Sanders Aircraft were super to us. We would occasionally come begging for a spe-cialty tool that one of them may have had and in return we would give them rides to Phoenix and back in the Con-vair. When we would return tools we would inevitably end up helping in our spare time (what little we had) with whatever warbird they happened to need a spare hand with.

“Steve Hinton, Rick Brickert, and Brian and Dennis Sanders were some of the guys that took us up on our of-fers of Convair rides, which seemed to always end up with them getting some

stick time. “L ooking back now, the

comical part was that summer Chino closed their long run-way for repairs. Our loads of Wall Street Journal newspapers continued to increase with the rise in summer temperatures. We would leave around 7 or 8 p.m., and routinely we would see a group of people sitting at

the end of the runway in lawn chairs watching us depart. We thought it was for the excitement of watching our big, round motored beast lift off of a

4,000-foot runway. “In reality it was our mechanic, our

all-female loading team, and bunches of people from the FBO, Planes of Fame, and everyone else that were taking bets to see if we would actu-ally make it out of the short runway! What a great bunch of people. They sure made a couple of Florida boys far from home with little support feel like we were welcome, and our jobs keeping our Convairs flying easier.”

Stearman QuestTim was hired with Piedmont Air-

lines in 1985 and has accumulated somewhere around 20,000 hours, having flown more than 100 different types of aircraft from experimental to warbirds to airliners including the 737, 727, 757, and 767, and captain on the DC-9, MD-80, 737, and most recently the Airbus 319, 320, and 321. But back then, as an “airline newbie,” he was scarping his change together, saving up for the Stearman of his dreams.

“I began shopping for a Stearman in the early 1990s,” said Tim. “I began no-ticing that many of the airplanes that had been restored I didn’t like for one reason or another and thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have to fix that or change this….’ I am a perfectionist by nature,

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Corvair 440

I guess you can blame my upbringing! “I realized fairly soon my search for

the ‘perfect Stearman’ was fruitless, and that maybe buying a project and re-storing it the way I wanted it is the bet-ter way to go. I decided that I would just start from scratch and do it myself and restore it the way I wanted it to look. I just had to find a Stearman project that would fit in my tight budget.”

In 1992 Tim moved to Leeward Air Ranch in Ocala, Florida, and was walking by some of the hangars on the field, and noticed one woman had a hangar jam-packed with airplanes and parts. He spied a Stearman frame in-side, so he stopped and chatted with the owner and asked her what she was going to do with it.

The woman, who was from Bel-gium, was in the business of buying AT-6 frames and was having them re-stored and then selling them. She tried to steer Tim away from the Stearman and into the T-6s because “they were worth more in the long run.”

“I corrected her and said yes I would like the Stearman very much as it has more sentimental value to me than monetary. We made the deal, and it was another one I couldn’t refuse. Of course we have all heard the story of ‘It’s a complete airplane; everything is there; you just need to put it together.’ I had worked on Stearmans before, and when I got the project I found out that it wasn’t all there; in fact a tremendous amount of things were missing.

“ There was no tail wheel trunion, the wings that were supposedly ready for cover were far from it, and there were no leading edges, and an assort-ment of other missing parts and pieces. That’s when I re-ally began learning even more about the Stearmans and be-gan to seek out and track down parts all over the country.”

After Tim purchased the airplane he began to do the historical background check of it. Tim’s Stearman was built in 1941, and it was first sta-tioned in Arcadia, Florida, with Embry-Riddle, training British and American cadets until late 1943. In 1944 it was sold to Morgan Crop Service where it served for more than 9,000 hours as a crop duster until it crashed in 1984. With history in hand Tim’s next big hurdle was not the res-toration part; his big dilemma was which paint scheme he should choose when he was finished.

Restoration, theCoconut Flyers Way

According to Tim, doing a Stearman restoration was more like a “fine line of tedium.” Tim understood that a Stearman restoration takes time, lots of it, and an appreciation for the word patience—and a little help from some experts goes a long way.

“I worked on the fuselage until I was

going to pull my hair out and then went on to something else and kept flip-ping back and forth. Thankfully I had two constants on the project. One was my dad, who helped quite a bit with the assembly. Whenever we would get to a certain point in the assembly he would always have a story about hang-ing wings, engines, etc., and it would always end with a shake of the head and a comment along the lines of “but ours never looked like this one,” or “but we never dreamed in a million years that these would last as long as they have.”

Tim’s other constant was a visitor named Gene Moore, who arrived like clockwork to observe the progress and lend a helping hand when it came to covering and rib stitching. And every day, according to Tim, Gene would say

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Fuselage layout.

Gene Moore

Jillian helping.

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the same words to Tim, “You know you really need a partner with this proj-ect.” Tim admits it sometimes takes him longer than the average Stearman pilot to take an obvious hint.

“Gene Moore was an electrical ge-nius before retirement,” Tim said. “He would stand over me every day while I was stitching the wing, and he

would say, ‘You need a partner in this airplane.’ I would say, ‘Nah, the last thing I need is a partner.’ I didn’t get the hint until my wife figured it out and said, ‘I think he wants to be a part-ner.’ I looked at Gene and said, ‘You want to be a partner?’ He blurted out, ‘Thought I would have to hit you in the head with a hammer!’ At 78 years

young, Gene soloed in the Stearman that he helped restore. I loved work-ing on the Stearman with my dad and Gene…so many stories and so much history from such talented and won-derful men.”

When the day finally arrived to apply the paint, Tim had originally wanted to preserve the Stearman’s his-

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tory and paint it in an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University scheme. Un-fortunately Tim’s alma mater wasn’t too keen on the idea, so Tim decided to go with a very accurate U.S. Navy paint scheme including a gray interior found on only 238 Stearmans that came off the assembly line.

Although Tim’s focus and intent was to keep the Stearman as accurate as possible, he decided to deviate by installing Red Line brakes for added safety. The 220 Continental overhaul was completed by Pete Jones, who brought the engine back to “better than new” condition.

After eight long years of very dedi-cated, and most times mind-numbing, work the Stearman was rolled out into the Florida sunshine for its first flight. Sadly one important member of the restoration team would not be able to witness this triumphant event.

“My biggest regret ever,” said Tim. “My father passed way on March 7, 2001. The airplane’s first flight was March 24, 2001. We ended up winning Grand Champion approximately 10 days later at Sun ’n Fun. It was a great honor for me, and I know my dad was watching, smiling down on us that night.

“One of my fondest memories of him was when he got to taxi in it with me. He was funny, never wanted to wear a headset, wanted to listen to the en-gine. I can still remember looking up in the mirror under the center section as we taxied around and seeing him smil-ing and wondering what his thoughts were—gets me every time. A little bit of him goes with me every time I fly. Actu-ally there is a whole lot of Gene Moore and Carl Kirby in that airplane.”

Flying the StearmanAccording to Tim, flying an open-

cockpit airplane is an awesome feeling.“Nothing beats seeing the contrails

come off the prop tips in the early morning dew, the sun coming up and the Continental 220 backfiring and burping before the engine rumble set-tles in. But it is also a very humbling airplane with 46 gallons of fuel right over your head, the gear is 6 inches nar-rower than the one on my Cessna 120,

Gene and Tim

First engine run.

Gene preparing the firewall for an engine.

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and when you get that big tail up—it’s a very honest airplane, but if you don’t stay on your toes, it is an airplane that will humble you very quickly.

“I have more than 1,000 hours’ Stearman time and 3,000 total tailwheel time, but every time I land the Stearman, es-pecially on pavement, I do my pre-landing prayer: ‘Please, God, don’t let me screw up!’”

But Tim also realizes that it’s not only the flying part that takes a lot of work and atten-tion; it also entails great cooper-ation from all involved to make the magic of f lying a historic treasure like this happen.

“The bottom line is the fact that you need a support system in owning an air-plane like this. Without it you might as well give up the battle. My wife, Paige, is the brains and beauty behind the opera-tion. She helps keeps the airplane clean and travels with me all over the country. My daughter Jillian also played a signifi-cant part early on. Heck, she was 4 years old when she was helping me with the restoration. I held her upside down by her feet so she could get at stuff in the belly of the airplane! She is 22 years old now and is an awesome co-pilot. My step-daughters, An-drea and Taylor, also help out as well, so it’s really a family affair when it comes to owning and car-ing for an airplane like this. I can’t thank each of them enough for all they do.”

Time MachineSo what does it mean for Tim

to sit inside the very same cock-pit where countless cadets—those who would become future fighter, bomber, transport, and liaison pilots—and rest his feet on the very same rudder pedals? According to Tim it’s a combi-nation of emotional and grate-ful with a little bit of gratitude thrown in for good measure.

“I was at Thomasville, Geor-gia, for an air show and was cleaning the engine when I

noticed an older gentleman walking around the airplane, rubbing it gen-tly with his hand not saying a word. I watched him go from side to side, and he finally came up to me and said, ‘Name’s Pratt and I flew these in Arca-dia, Florida.’”

“I said ‘Well, this airplane was also in Arcadia, Florida, maybe you flew it there.’ Before I could finish our conversation someone interrupted us, and the guy walked away. Fortunately he came back

the next day with his logbooks and showed me he flew this airplane down in Arcadia. I said, ‘You know what? Hop in ’cause we’re going flying!’ He tried to say no, but I had him in the front seat before he could change his mind. We went up and he flew it like he had never been out of it. He told me he flew bombers in the war, and when he came back he said he hadn’t been in another airplane since.

“When we were flying I looked back in the mirror and he was cry-ing as tears streamed down his face. As I turned final he was still crying, which started me crying, and when we got on the ground his daughter was crying. There

was a puddle of tears by the Stearman as we are sobbing and hugging one an-other. When the tears finally stopped flowing I looked at him and said, ‘You really did a great job Pratt!’

“He replied, ‘Well thank you son, and there’s something I forgot to tell you. I have Alzheimer’s. But you know what? When I turned base to final you wouldn’t believe the emotion that hit me, and the people I haven’t thought

about in years. For a few glori-ous minutes I was 19 years old again over Arcadia, Florida turn-ing base to final.’”

“That’s when I knew it was time to give back, so I started barnstorming and giving rides to as many World War II veterans as I could before they are all but just a distant memory. Every time I fly the Stearman I consider my-self a caretaker and a custodian of history for the people that sac-rificed their freedoms and lives for where we are today. I share it with everyone so the memories of the guys and gals who built them and f lew them are pre-served and I hope that their lega-cies never die or fade away. The Stearman is a tribute to guys like my father, Carl, who started in Stearmans. It’s my way of honor-ing and recognizing him and all who served our country to help ‘Keep em Flying!’”

Coconut FlyersCoconut Flyers is a group of like-minded

aviators dedicated to the restoration and pres-ervation of these old airplanes to honor those that came before us with them.

Tim explains, “While we work very hard at what we do, we always want to share with oth-ers and do so with a laid back island state of mind. The original Coconut Flyers were Jim McConnel and me. Jim sold his Stearman and he and his wife, Connie, will always be Coconut Flyers. Jon Rising has an Army Air Corps Stear-man and other than my wife, Paige, he is the most active with the maintenance and flying activities. There are a host of other Coconuts that take active rolls in one way or another. We are always looking to expand the ranks of Co-conut Flyers. So if you love old biplanes, honor-ing the men and women who flew these pieces of history and the way they worked and played during that era, maybe Coconut Flyers could be in your future. We are always looking for Coconuts and especially Coconettes!”

To find out more about the Coconuts Flyers visit their website at www.coconutflyers.com.

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Paige and Tim along with Taylor and Andrea at SNF 12.