Page 21 - World Airshow News Final

The Jet Waco is a one-of-a-kind beast with
a 450 horsepower radial plus a powerful jet
engine (photo by Jim Froneberger).

The Jet Waco excels in the vertical and
can climb to over 10,000 feet without
stopping (photo by Jim Froneberger).

take over the family crop spraying and that Brett Hunter was selling down in
maintenance business. Several years later, Waynesville, Ohio. Brett was a competi-
his brother joined him in the business tion guy who also did some airshows,
and they opened a new hangar and shop and we did a lot of flying with him. My
at the Valley City airport, about 30 miles brother got his first SAC card from Brett.”
northwest of their farm. Valley City is still The Lindemann family had long been
their home base today. close to fellow North Dakota airshow
By about 2011 or 2012, the Linde- pilots Kent and Warren Pietsch, so they
mann’s were starting to get more serious started flying local shows and learning
about aerobatics and airshows. Jarrod was about the airshow business from Kent
flying aerobatics in Stearmans and a Su- and Warren. “Those guys have such a long
per Decathlon, when one spring he went history in the airshow world,” says Jarrod.
out to the Chico, California area to help “They had fantastic knowledge there.”
a friend who had an agricultural aviation When the Red Baron Squadron dis-
business there. banded after the 2007 airshow season, the
While he was in California, he visited Lindemann’s bought one of the former
with famous airshow great Wayne Hand- Red Baron Stearmans at an auction at
he started crop spraying and also got his ley, who was also a respected aerobatics the team’s former base in Marshall, Min-
A&P mechanics license. coach and mentor. Wayne had also come nesota. N805RB was in pieces, so Jarrod
As he was growing up, Jarrod attended from the ag-flying world, so it was a per- and his brother brought it back to North
airshows with his dad and also got to fly fect fit. Jarrod spent a week flying with Dakota and restored it back to its original
some aerobatics with him as well. “I was Wayne in his Extra 300 and received his configuration. Jarrod then added a per-
just hooked on aerobatics, and for as long first Statement of Aerobatic Competency formance in the Red Baron Stearman to
as I can remember, I wanted to be an (SAC) card. his Pitts act.
airshow pilot someday,” he says. He was “My family had owned Pitts airplanes, In about 2017 or 2018, Jarrod recalls
also thinking about pursuing an airline or and Dad and my uncle built the very first he was flying the Stearman at airshow
charter flying career. experimental two-seat Pitts S2E back in in Fargo, North Dakota when he met
Then in 2001, when Jarrod was 20, he 1979,” explains Jarrod. “So, my brother John Klatt, who was there performing in
lost his dad in an airplane accident. That and I bought another two-seat Pitts, and his Screamin’ Sasquatch Jet Waco. That
changed everything, and he decided to then we ended up looking at another one chance meeting started a chain of events

World Airshow News 21 The Final Issue