Vicky Benzing will be performing in a 1940 Boeing Stearman bi-plane! This restomod has a 450HP Pratt and Whitney engine and smoke system that turns this classic biplane into a high-powered aerobatic performance aircraft.

Vicky’s beautiful Stearman was manufactured in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1940 by the Boeing Aircraft Company for use as a military trainer. It served during WWII at Air Bases in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama where hundreds of pilots learned to fly in it.  

In February of 1946 after the war ended, this airplane Was transferred to Eagle Field in Dos Palos California and sold from the War Assets Administration for $770.

The airplane’s new owner fitted it with a 450HP Pratt & Whitney R985 engine and converted it to a crop duster where it was used for spraying operations in California’s Sacramento Valley until 1973 when it was disassembled and put into storage. In 1990, the airplane was taken out of storage and restored by Stadel Aircraft based in Yuba City California. It was converted back from a restricted category crop duster to a standard acrobatic category aircraft.

Purchased by Vicky in 1998 at the Pine Mountain Lake Airport near Yosemite California. She loves to fly the airplane at air shows in an aerial display of power and grace in the spirit of early barnstorming.