Flying Aces and Their Vintage Machines

There is a whir, a wheeze and a cough, followed by a belch of white smoke and, finally, a throaty, meaty rumble--a roar--as the big, old radial engine comes to life. It is a distinctive sound, one you’ve likely never heard before, unless you spent time around airports at least half a century ago.

You close your eyes and listen and it takes you back to another era, another time, when aviators flew airplanes that had two wings on each side and cockpits open to the wind. When planes were made of fabric and wood, cross-wire bracing, a little spit and polish, and were flown on faith.

When a 1943 Stearman biplane rolls out onto the taxiway at the Bayport Aerodrome, for a moment it is again Long Island of the 1940s. You’re back in the golden age of aviation, complete with blades of grass blowing in the prop wash.

The ’43 Stearman, owned by 74-year-old ex-Navy man Bob Fritts, is just one of an intriguing array of about 40 antique and classic aircraft--a dozen of them biplanes--being restored, flown and cared for on a daily basis by the members of the Bayport Aerodrome Society. It is a group of more than 100 men and women--average age, 70--whose love for old planes is helping to keep alive a dying breed.

“It’s a lost art,” said Fritts, who spent six years getting his Stearman, once a Navy training plane, into flying condition. “The art of restoration is a discipline. It takes a lot of patience.”

The society is a study in perseverance and determination. It was formed in 1972 after a developer purchased the grass airfield with a plan to build 138 homes on the site. The group persuaded the town of Islip to buy the land from the developer. Local, state and federal funds contributed to the airfield’s restoration, and the establishment of a “living aviation museum.”

The aerodrome, which first opened in 1947, is one of the few municipally owned grass airfields in the country.

“What we’re doing is capturing a little bit of history,” Bayport Aerodrome Society President Jackie Mineo said. “There is a streak of adventure to it. It’s the old way of flying, more interesting. . . . For our members, this is in their blood and they’re not letting it go.”

The collection of so many old airplanes in one place is eye-catching. There’s John Prechtl’s rare Navy N3N, one of just 31 surviving and autographed by Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra. There’s Rick Kasper’s Fleet biplane, nicknamed “Conquistador del Cielo,” or Conqueror of the Sky. There’s a Beechcraft Staggerwing, a 1929 Nicholas-Beasley, a BK Bird, built in Brooklyn. Ed Katzen has two Tiger Moths, Fred Schmukler a 1940 Waco.

There’s Bill Jensen’s Stearman trainer, painted in the original blue-and-yellow color scheme of the U.S. Army Air Corps--and rebuilt by society members in about three months after its veteran pilot crashed the first time he flew it.

Even for routine maintenance, Fritts has 2,000 mechanical drawings of the Stearman, as well as fabric and framing for wings and fuselages, and spare propellers and engines all sitting around, waiting for rebirth.

The almost constant work on the planes to keep them in good repair has forged a camaraderie with a pull almost as strong as flying itself. Each plane requires about 10 hours of maintenance for each hour it is in the air, said Harry Gunther.

When Gunther’s wife, Mary, couldn’t bring herself to join him in his 1947 Aeronca Champ--she’d never flown in a small plane--Jensen spent an hour coaxing her up in the air in his larger Stearman.

Roy Kieser and Gottfried Dulias flew for opposing sides in World War II; Kieser was a B-17 top turret gunner for the U.S. Army Air Corps, and Dulias flew an ME-109 for the German Luftwaffe. Now, they’re bosom buddies.

Then there is 90-year-old Nathaniel Quinn, his pilot’s license autographed by Orville Wright in 1926. He no longer flies himself; but Schmukler took him up for a flight in his Waco.

“We’re old fossils,” said Fritts, a former president of the society. A sign on the door to Fritts’ hangar even says so: “Fossil Aviators.” But still flying.