By Frederick A. Johnsen
When 34 Kittyhawk biplanes rolled out of the shop, the Depression put a padlock on the door in 1934. And that might have been the end of the line, if Bob Coolbaugh of Newmarket, Virginia, hadn’t swung into action in 2012. Bob bought the wreck of a Kittyhawk, one of five thought to be in existence in varying states of disrepair.
And the big debut for Bob’s restoration is EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2021. To the too-casual observer, the Kittyhawk might blend in with any three-place sport biplanes of the late 1920s and early 1930s. But stand in its presence for a few moments, and construction nuances manifest themselves. Catch the reflection on the underside of the wing, and the old-school cambered airfoil adds a touch of vintage class. The horizontal stabilizer stands free of the fuselage and the vertical fin, with gaps that allow for adjusting its angle of attack for pitch trim.
And if the rudder looks like something off of a classic pre-war Stearman, Bob says that is no accident. Lloyd Stearman and Kittyhawk founder Allan Bourdon worked together before the birth of the Kittyhawk, and Stearman’s influence is logical.
The Kittyhawk might owe its name to the storied location of the Wright brothers’ first powered flight, yet aviation lore says the test pilot commented after its first flight in 1928 that the biplane “flies like a hawk, lands like a kitten”. The company’s logo included a docile pussycat.
Designed for sometimes-lumpy grass field operations, the Kittyhawk’s main gear struts use a combination spring and oil cushion to damp out bumps. Bob says the gear hangs down about a foot lower in flight than with weight on wheels. All that cushion can give the plane a soft landing, but he says it is important to let the Kittyhawk damp out its own bounces as it settles on the springs, rather than chase them with the stick.
Bob’s Kittyhawk has a Supplemental Type Certificate for the Kinner engine used on World War II PT-22 trainers, giving it a boost in horsepower that this plane used when it was a ride-hopping floatplane from about 1940 to the early 1970s, when an engine stoppage led to a crash that separated the Kittyhawk into several chunks. The short run of Kittyhawks relied on various versions of five-cylinder Kinners after initially trying a German Siemens engine that did not work out, Bob explains.
Bob invested eight years in remaking his Kittyhawk. With the aid of about 95 percent of the drawings for the design, he made new wooden wing structures and repaired damaged steel fuselage tubing.
Bob says the design flies more like a biplane from the 1920s than the 1930s. “This is more a 1920s handling… kinda flies truckish”, he explains. But it is “honest and stable” Bob adds. “I’m not going to talk bad about it because she’s an honest old plane”.
And that says something about Bob’s approach to vintage aviation. He likes to give newbies rides to acquaint them with classic aircraft, and he likes to talk about his classic Kittyhawk. “The big thing is we need more and younger people who are interested in finding and rebuilding these old airplanes”.
“I consider these things works of art”, he says. And there is no finer gallery for such classic art than AirVenture.