Boeing 75 Kaydet

The Boeing-Stearman Model 75 was the primary basic trainer for tens of thousands of American and Allied pilots during the Second World War, a rugged, forgiving biplane built to survive the rough handling of thousands of first-time student pilots. Its open-cockpit, fabric-covered biplane design was already old-fashioned by wartime standards, but its simplicity and durability made it ideally suited to mass primary flight training. After the war, thousands of surplus Stearmans were sold cheaply to civilians and widely converted into crop-dusters, a second career that kept the type flying commercially for decades. A large number survive today, making it one of the most common warbird biplanes still flying at airshows worldwide.