I continue to be amused at the way TCT describes the old tub with such breathless excitement and superlatives making it out to be something really special and out of the ordinary to fly, even though she is clearly pandering to those people still in awe of the super-human nature of flying and the heroism of pilots.
The damn thing is a perfectly ornery, exceedingly sedate and (once) disposable pussy of a basic trainer for God's sake, and, unlike the DeHavilland variety, built strongly enough to shrug off the bashes and crunches of inept 17yr olds trying not to mishandle it. The way she bigs it all up as though she were wrestling a tetchy bear or a marginal jet (all that faux-technical guff about density altitude - its a bloody Stearman!) would be comical if it didn't sit so squarely with the rest of her blatant self-promotion. Still, she seems to have explored it's toughness more thoroughly than might be hoped.
It didn't seem so very hard to fly when I had a go. Three circuits and solo. With 90mins previous tailwheel time and I'm certainly no test pilot.