On a warm summer day in northern Illinois, a young girl sat in the shade under her family Stearman watching a big, smoky biplane perform loops, rolls, and hammerhead turn-arounds at an airshow. She’d grown up around aviation along with her sister and three brothers at the hometown family airport, and she always knew she wanted to fly.
And in that moment, Susan Dacy felt a calling: Someday, she’s going to do that.
Dacy’s journey with aviation began thanks to her father, John Dacy, who had served as a B-24 crew chief during World War II. Following the end of the war, he turned his local grass strip in Harvard, Illinois, into a full-service airport operation.
“The airport was a family thing [for me],” Susan Dacy said. “It was our way of life.”
After that day at the airshow, 14-year-old Dacy begged her father for a Stearman of her own. He obliged, giving her a Stearman project. The maintenance side of aviation had always interested her, and the Stearman offered her a way to learn about working on planes while she learned to fly.
Still in high school, Dacy spent every spare hour she had working on her Stearman. With help from her father and brothers, the restoration was completed in 1974. Dacy would take her private pilot check ride in it and still has the Stearman to this day.
“I’ve had it since I was 14 and an engine later,” she said.
Dacy attended Southern Illinois University, earning a degree in aviation operations and systems, as well as her A&P mechanic license. After her graduation, Dacy said she “chased jobs all over the place.” She would fly canceled checks and film to be developed and even earned her commercial license in helicopters doing pipeline patrol.
“I’m a fixed-wing person, but the helicopters were fascinating,” she said.
In 1984, Dacy was hired at American Airlines, where she would become a captain on the 727 after five years and later flew planes like the Boeing 757 and 777. After 39 years with American, she flew her retirement flight at age 65 as a captain on the Boeing 787.
Dacy echoes what many airline pilots know to be true: “Aviation is a mix of luck, timing, a good attitude, and skill. Thirty-nine-thousand hours, and it feels like it went by in the blink of an eye.”
But while she was enjoying an incredible career with one of the largest airlines in the world, Dacy hadn’t forgotten about her dream of flying aerobatics at airshows. Her older brother, Dave, had already delved into the airshow world in his own Stearman. Dacy had purchased a Great Lakes biplane during her journey to the airlines and was soon invited to participate in the Morris, Illinois, airshow.
“And then I was asked to do a few more,” Dacy said.
In 1994, Dacy received a call from airshow legend Bobby Younkin.
“He said there was a 450 horsepower Stearman for sale,” Dacy said. “I kept thinking, ‘No, I don’t need another airplane.’ Anyway, I brought it home.”
Dacy continues to awe airshow crowds with her Super Stearman, which has affectionately been named Big Red. Dave, now retired from flying airshows, helps keep Big Red in top shape, and brother Phil serves as her announcer. Dacy, along with her brothers, received the Bill Barber Award for Showmanship at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2007.
“If someone would have told me when I was first starting out that I’d be doing airshows for 30-plus years, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Dacy said.
Dacy continues to fly around 10 airshows a year and will be performing at AirVenture in Wisconsin in July.
