rugmuncher, whilst none of us here have any evidence to the contrary of Ewald ever flying the Stearman on those jaunts, honestly, truthfully, hand on heart, can you really believe that a 20,000 hr pilot, the engineer himself, never flew that aircraft. Sorry, for me, on the balance of probabilities, I would say that he did fly that aircraft ON those jaunts at various stages.
...and I think any one of us here as her co-pilot would have done the same.