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Sporting a pair of silver aviators rested atop a bristled
mustache, a pair of worn flip flops picked up from a local
convenience store and a shirt that reads, 'Don't just stand there,
go fly something', Harry Greene quickly disappears through a side
door of a hangar at Kalaeloa Airport, Oahu.
“This will just
take a second!” he yells.
Moments later, an enormous hangar
door opens revealing a bright yellow Boeing Stearman Kaydet Primary
Trainer plane nestled safely inside as if it had been taking a nap.
Greene walks out of the hangar into the sunlight, admiring the plane
with the trademark grin his crew at Coast Guard Air Station Barbers
Point knows all too well.
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Harry Greene flashes a shaka while flying his Boeing Stearman Kaydet
Primary Trainer airplane over Kalaeloa Airport, Oahu, Jan. 31, 2016.
Greene is a helicopter pilot at Coast Guard Air Station Barbers
Point and an aircraft enthusiast in his off-duty time. (U.S. Coast
Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle)
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“She's a beauty isn't she?” he says, blue eyes lit up
like a child seeing the presents under the tree on Christmas
morning. He takes a quick glance up as a few clouds in the
sky reflect back in the lenses of his glasses, “Today looks
like a great day for a flight.”
“Well,” says Greene
as he claps his hands together and motions to the plane,
“Shall we?”
Built in 1934 in Wichita, Kansas, the Boeing Stearman
Kaydet Trainer was used during WWII as a trainer plane for
novice pilots in the Army Air Corps and the Navy. The planes
were delivered to bases in Georgia, Florida and Alabama,
where they served the entire time from March 1941 through
the end of the war. Approximately 50 percent of all U.S.
military pilots who fought in WWII received initial flight
training in the aircraft and 8,430 Stearmans were built
before manufacturing ended in 1944. As a cadet in the Navy,
former president George Bush Sr. soloed in a Stearman in
1942. Post WWII, many of the Stearman remained in service
until the early 1990's and served as crop dusting and
spraying planes due to their slow, low-level flying
capabilities. Over 1,000 Stearman trainers remain in flying
condition today.
One of them belongs to Greene.
“It's actually my wife's plane,” said Greene chuckling
out loud. “I was deployed to the Middle East around 2009. A
friend of mine had it but was getting rid of it to buy a
different plane. I had always wanted one and had a bunch of
models people would give me as jokes saying, “Here! I bought
you a Stearman!”
While Greene remained deployed, his
wife Evelyn began to search around for one in their price
range but always found one a little too late before a new
buyer snatched it up.
“My wife had full power of
attorney while I was gone,” said Greene. “One day I got an
email saying, ‘Look what I bought!.' I was like, get out of
here! For real?”
“We don't have kids so this was our
‘What have we done moment?'” said Greene smiling although
clearly not regretting the decision. “Then we started
thinking, oh my gosh, we have to find a hangar for this
thing! We gotta get gas and there's the maintenance. It's a
big expensive toy that requires a lot of care and feeding.”
While the Stearman remains near and dear to Greene's
heart so does his love for flying and general aviation.
Greene has been flying since 1989 and serving in the Coast
Guard since 2002. With 2016 marking 100 years of Coast Guard
aviation, Greene's 27 years of flying experience contributes
significant knowledge, experience and skill to his fellow
Coast Guard aviators.
Before joining the Coast
Guard, Greene was conducting maintenance and running a small
flight school in Arizona when the helicopter bug bit him.
While at his school, he explained how he ran into a Coast
Guard helicopter crew on their way through to their air
station in Mobile, Alabama.
“I remember saying to the
crew, ‘Hey that's a really fancy helicopter you've got,'
(pretending to motion to theirs on the tarmac). ‘Mine is the
rinky dink one over in the corner,'” he recalls laughing.
In conversation, Greene learned more regarding what
the jobs entailed for pilots and crew serving while in Coast
Guard.
“You can do that as a job?” recalls Greene
excitedly. “It was a total epiphany. I went down to the
recruiter the next weekend, signed up and lucked out. I was
selected for Coast Guard Officer Candidate School and then
went right to flight school immediately after.”
Greene now serves as an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter pilot at
Air Station Barbers Point, which boasts one of the largest
areas of responsibility for search and rescue in the Coast
Guard.
“While the Stearman is my favorite aircraft
to fly, I absolutely love the Dolphin,” said Greene. “It's a
fantastic helicopter. It has its limitations but it's a lot
of fun to fly. Both aircraft put a grin on my face.”
Being stationed in Hawaii keeps Greene incredibly busy both
at Air Station Barbers Point as well as in his personal
life. When he's not at work, Greene and his wife serve as
life members of a local non-profit organization, General
Aviation Council of Hawaii.
“We work with them and
serve on the board of directors,” said Greene.
“The main
focus is to get people out flying as well as getting general
aviation safety out to folks within the islands. We also
give Young Eagles rides in our plane. Their mission is to
introduce kids into the world of aviation.”
The
Stearman remains as somewhat of a famous icon being visited
on and off by several historians, aviation buffs as well as
some VIPs.
“Two of the original Tuskegee Airmen,
William ‘Bill' Holloman and Alexander Jefferson, have flown
this plane multiple times,” said Greene. “It was pretty
amazing so we had them sign the inside of the baggage
compartment.”
Tuskegee Airmen refers to all who were
involved in the so-called Tuskegee Experience, the Army Air
Corps program to train African Americans to fly and maintain
combat aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots,
navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff,
instructors, and all the personnel who kept the planes in
the air.
“Jessica Cox has also flown in it,” said
Greene. “She is the only armless pilot in the world that we
know of at this time and does everything with her feet.
She's pretty remarkable.”
With all the attention,
keeping the Stearman airworthy, especially in its old age is
no easy task. It's something only those willing to dedicate
time, patience and love can accomplish.
“The
propellers, engine, and many other parts have all been
replaced over the years and we have a lot of parts aside on
hold for when it needs to be overhauled again,” said Greene.
“New wings are being built right now as we speak. It's a
cycle of maintenance. The joke is, I have George
Washington's hatchet that cut down the cherry tree but I
have only replaced the blade twice and the handle four times
but it's the original ax. It's just kind of the way aviation
is. So it's a 1941 aircraft but it's just got a lot of new
parts on it.”
The Greene's have a personal goal of
flying the Stearman together over Pearl Harbor in 2041 for
the 100th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which
also coincides with the 100th anniversary of the plane
itself.
However lofty a goal it might be, at the end of
the day, it's straight passion fueling his love of the
Stearman and flying.
“You're right there,” said
Greene, eyes glazing over as though he's envisioning himself
already in the cockpit. “You smell the exhaust. You feel the
wind blowing your hair around. It's close to riding a
motorcycle in the air and it's why I love flying. We don't
do this for money or to gain anything out of it. It's the
caretakership of the machine and preserving the history and
love of aviation.”
Taking another quick glance at the
Stearman waiting on the open tarmac and through that
trademark grin, Greene ends, “And it's a hell of a lot of
fun.”
By U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2016
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