Aircraft that last saw active duty during Franklin D. Roosevelt's heyday are taking to the skies this week from a tarmac in Rostraver Township.
Wannabe daredevils, take note: Warbird Skyventures, a flying service that offers hands-on flights in vintage World War II aircraft, has set up shop at Rostraver Airport through Thursday.
The flight times range from 15 minutes to an hour. Each flight offers the aerobatic option -- loops, twirls, rolls and an available "sick sack."
More serene trips for the less adventurous are offered, too. Flights range from about $180 to $660.
Paying much more Tuesday than the nickel price of the 1930s was Peter Ryerson, a flying enthusiast who piloted his own plane to Rostraver from Akron, Ohio, for the chance to lift off in a 1941 Boeing Stearman -- the primary training plane during World War II. His son gave him the historical flight as a gift.
Ryerson's tie was imprinted with little planes and even his prescription glasses are aviator-styled.
The dizzying propeller cleared the runway of any stray dust as Ryerson, with dress trousers flapping, climbed into the front seat. Gina Moore, owner of Warbird Skyventures, strapped herself in behind him.
Ryerson said the flight aboard the Stearman was "slower, hotter and a lot of fun" compared to his usual flights.
Two small video cameras -- one on the back wing and the other placed in front of the cockpit -- recorded Ryerson's 20 minutes of air time. The tape captured Moore's cries of "Wooo!" as the plane looped above the Western Pennsylvania landscape.
"Don't worry; we're not going to do that on the ride home," Ryerson said to his passenger, investment salesman Richard Hogg.
Hogg learned yesterday morning that an early-morning flight to Rostraver was the only way he could keep his meeting with Ryerson. Hogg dutifully took pictures.
Moore has led her small crew of pilots around the country like true vagabonds for eight years. That means carting around in her two homes: a motor home -- "the one with wheels" -- and the two aircraft -- "the ones with wings," she said.
Skyventures brought a multi-colored North American AT-6 and a yellow Boeing N2S-5 Stearman to Rostraver, both decked out with fresh paint and a shiny finish. The planes, which can hit 190 mph, were used mainly as training planes for student pilots.
"Only a handful were equipped with machine guns," said Kyle Crabtree, a pilot with the Tennessee-based company.
Skyventures's clientele ranges from peer-pressured worrywarts to WWII veterans who still can remember the tricks of the trade, Crabtree said. No previous flying experience is needed.
Crabtree and his cockpit cohorts travel south to Texas in the winter, then hop around the East Coast as summer approaches. The company has stopped by Rostraver for the past three years.
While in town, Skyventures will perform a "missing man fly-by" -- an aerial homage to Elaine Heston, a local pilot who died last October in a Fayette County crash. Skyventures knew Heston from their recurring trips to Rostraver.
The formation -- in which a single plane breaks from the pack and flies off alone -- symbolically honors a fallen pilot.
Moore and her crew call themselves modern-day barnstormers -- an updated version of the unemployed World War I pilots who used to beckon thrill-seekers with aerobatic stunts over cornfields.
Passengers would barter for a ride, sometimes paying a nickel or offering room and board in the nearby barn; hence the name.
"A true barnstormer was homeless," Crabtree said.
Moore and Co. sometimes stay at a site for several weeks.
"We try to be locals for a while," Moore said.
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