The Stearman biplane was used by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and allied air forces as a primary flight trainer to prepare pilots to fly in World War II. 

"The Yellow Peril"
The Boeing Aircraft Company called the airplane the Kaydet.  However, instructors and cadets in the flight schools of World War II called it the "Yellow Peril".  This nickname came from the yellow paint, but also from the general belief that the airplanes were difficult to land and because of the hazards of getting close to swarms of inexperienced flyers!  These rugged and maneuverable biplanes were used to train thousands of military pilots in five years. 

The Stearmans were actually built by the Boeing Aircraft Company, which purchased the Stearman Aircraft Company in 1934.

Stearman N68835 is a U.S. Army model PT-13D. Boeing also produced it as the U.S. Navy model N2S-5.  This was the first airplane to be accepted by both services as they came off the assembly line at the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas.  The PT-13D/N2S-5 carried both services markings and plates and was painted all silver (the color of the dope used to cover the fabric).  Whichever service received the airplane would paint out the other service’s markings at the base of first assignment. 

Stearmans will always symbolize the open-cockpit era, as well as the extraordinary sacrifice and effort of our entire country during World War II.  In a phenomenally short period of time, thousands of Stearmans were produced to train hundreds of flyers.  Cadets typically graduated from primary flight training with 65 hours aloft in about nine weeks.

At the end of the war, the government had 10,346 Kaydets, including the equivalent spare parts with no military use.  These training airplanes were sold for hundreds of dollars each.  Most of the Kaydets were converted to hard use as crop dusters or other work.  Relatively few of these airplanes flying today.

"Now the skies over the practice fields are quiet and the swarms of Yellow Perils are gone.  Most of the practice fields are turned under by the plow or returned to pasture land.

For a few brief years, the Yellow Perils and the men who flew them earned a unique place in the annals of military flying.  With their speaking tubes (in the absence of electronic communication systems), flare pots (in the absence of more sophisticated field lighting) and converted cotton patches (in lieu of paved airfields), they provided a flying experience no military pilots have experienced since.  

The Stearman instructors and the students were the last military pilots to fly in open cockpits and know the string of the wind and the hum of the flying wires." 

- Excerpted from Teacher Wore a Parachute  by Joe James, 1966

top