The Storyteller and the Stearman

Years ago, a small boy watched entranced as his hero, a T-6 pilot, flew an aerobatic air show routine.

After landing and parking, the pilot climbed out of the T-6. The small boy eagerly approached him with a question in mind and hand outstretched. But instead of shaking the boy’s hand and listening, the pilot brusquely brushed him aside and walked away with friends.

The boy was crushed…yet he began to feel a rising tide of determination swelling within him. 

And so it was that Hans Nordsiek began learning, early on, that “life is not about being in a comfort zone with a big fence around you. Sometimes it’s being hit hard by life that makes you grow.”

“I still remember that day,” said 62-year-old Nordsiek. “At that time, I said to myself, ‘something is wrong in his house, and if I will be in his position sometime in my life, I’ll promise I will talk to that child. About 10 to 15 years ago, I stepped out of my Stearman at an air show, and there were the children — bingo! Here was my angel reminding me I have to keep my promise.”

“I’m so happy for that man brushing me aside, because he put me on a spiritual path by pushing me into a corner,” he said. “So now my mission is to inspire children and have them aspire to their best in the world.” 

A native of the Netherlands, Hans was first hooked on aviation when he was just six and his father took him to an aviation museum in Amsterdam, where he saw a Spitfire.

“I very much remember that moment,” said Hans, who is now based at Mid Coast Airport (KLHW) in Hinesville, Georgia. “I decided I wanted to have something with wings. As a child I would draw a big airplane with two wings for my friend and me and a big engine.”

Dream to Reality

Hans came to the United States back in the 1980s to do his flight training, and then briefly worked as a CFII in Clarksville, Tennessee, and Hemet, California. About that same time, pilot jobs were opening up in Holland, so he went back to Europe and found a job with a commuter airline. Later, he was hired by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and flew for the airline for 28 years.  

In 1990, he returned to the United States. It was while attending the Stearman Fly-In in Galesburg, Illinois, that he realized the grand old biplane fulfilled his childhood dream.

He bought a 1943 Boeing Stearman in Missouri. Finished in black and gold, N9912H’s fuselage is adorned with a comical version of the vintage advertising logo for the Kentucky whiskey Old Crow.

N9912H started its life as a Boeing N2S-3 Kaydet. Delivered to the United States Navy in 1943, it was stationed at the Naval Air Station Training Camp until it was withdrawn from military service in 1946. In 1947, it was registered as a civilian aircraft and flown as a crop duster until 1968. After being converted back to a two-place biplane, its workload lightened considerably by flying scenic flights until Hans purchased it.

It wasn’t until recently that Hans learned more about the provenance of Old Crow. He received an email from a man in California, who told him the story firsthand.

“He said in the late 1970s when he was 15, the Stearman owner gave him some some paint and told him to do something funny with the airplane. So he painted the Old Crow on it,” said Hans. “My theater entrepreneurship in Europe began around that same time, and now the airplane is like a magnet for people, especially young people, who have all kinds of questions about the Old Crow. So I started telling stories and answering questions, and that’s how my theater has evolved.”

“This airplane has a name and a personality — it’s a character,” he continued. “So I took it into another realm from flying, because I found the tools to connect with people more in the world of theater than in the world of aviation.”

Initially, Hans took the Stearman to Holland, where he flew it for fun until 2004. Deciding to test the Stearman’s potential to enhance his theater presentations, he started incorporating the airplane in what has now become his “aviation-theater.”

In 2006, N9912H underwent a ground-up restoration by Raymond’s Aircraft Restoration in Antwerp, Belgium.  

“I bought the engine from Pete Jones at Air Repair. I had already started my theater and traveling through Europe with a lot of equipment, and I needed more power to get off small airports,” said Hans. “So I made the big jump and had a 275-hp Jacobs with a Hamilton Standard 2B20 controllable pitch propeller installed. That really makes a difference in takeoff and climb.” 

In addition to keeping the Old Crow livery, Hans also added a succinct history of the airplane on the fuselage, and this statement: “The Old Crow is dedicated to people of all times and nations who strive for world peace.”

The Storyteller Show

Attending the Antique Airplane Association/Airpower Museum’s Invitational Fly-In for the first time in 2021, Hans was accompanied by his stepson, Wayne Stimson. They brought not only their camping gear, but also enough equipment to hold an aviation-theater presentation one afternoon. 

Hans enjoys interacting with children — of all ages — and wants to inspire them to achieve their own dreams, whether aviation-related or otherwise. His performances are, in a sense, a bit reminiscent of lessons from “The Little Prince,” the legendary character created by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

A few quotes from that book highlight the sentiment with which Hans wields his performances: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye” and “All grown-ups were once children…but only few of them remember it.” 

Hans describes his shows this way: “It’s a bit of a strange mix what I do. I’m acting, I’m storytelling — but I’m not like a regular theater actor playing somebody else. I’m pretty good now at playing myself! We’ve traveled through Europe, we’ve done many slapstick-like shows — and it’s also clowning around with a little bit of magic here and there. Really, it’s entertainment with a message: Become who you are. I tell the children, ‘you have to do what’s inside your heart and give full power to your God-given talents.’”

Airplanes are a natural medium for Hans to convey his message because he has nurtured the aviation inspiration he found in his own heart as a child.

“So if I do something with airplanes, I can get enthusiastic, and that’s contagious, especially for children,” he said. “They sense, ‘oh, that man loves what he’s doing.’ Yes, I do, and the message for them is, ‘you should do something that you love.'”

“I have learned that, for me, aviation is more than a physical experience, it is also a spiritual thing,” he said. “So you put yourself in a situation where you will always reach for the skies — and also reach for more in life.” 

Five Stripes

Many years ago, Hans was greeting passengers boarding his airliner and feeling rather proud to be wearing his KLM captain’s uniform, replete with four-stripe epaulets. Then a 10-year-old boy approached him and asked if he could please meet the pilot wearing five stripes. 

“He was very serious and I didn’t really know what to say,” Hans recalled. “He came up and asked me again, after we landed. So two years ago, I wrote a book about the pilot with five stripes, which was published in Europe.”

“What I learned from his question is that if you have four stripes, maybe you can get to five stripes — in other words, keep climbing above the clouds and, in the process, learn who you are and find your path in life,” he said. “I’ve done shows in Africa, Thailand, and South America … and I see children not getting the message that they have a  purpose. They’re not here to just eat and drink and die after so many years, they have something to do here. I look more at the metaphoric aspect to help children, and to tell them, ‘I found my passion and purpose, and if I can do it, you can do it! I’m no better than you — I made my path and you can do the same.”

To learn more about The Storyteller, go to HansNordsiek.com.