Duo is Barnstorming for Fun and Profit.

Author: William L. Roberts. Source: Philadelphia Business Journal June 21, 1993

Several hundred feet above the treetops and fields of Chester County, Tom Harnish, a.k.a. "Tailspin Tommy," taunts gravity.

Sensing his passengers are up for more thrills, he banks his 1929 Travel Air open-cockpit biplane hard to the left, pointing the wings straight down and straight up. The plane's 220 h.p. engine powers craft and people through a 180-degree turn.

The maneuver, he barks over the airplane's intercom, is similar to circles cut by World War I flying aces trying to get behind pursuing enemy fighters.

Pinned to their seats by three G-forces, his passengers who earlier had been willing to plunk down $85 for a joy ride, squeal with delight as propeller wash melts their human voices with the sky.

Back on terra firma at New Garden Airfield, Sue Scheuermann -- who had traveled from Egg Harbor, N.J., with her husband, Jim, to fly in the biplane -- grinned ear-to-ear and hopped up and down gleefully. This is definitely better than computer games.

"The noise is great. It's like being a kid on a bicycle for the first time. It's the same kind of feeling because you're right there," Scheuermann, 41, said.

SECOND CAREERS

Harnish, a former computer scientist, together with Kate Lister, a.k.a. "Cash Register Kate," a former banker and small-business adviser, started Barnstorming Adventures two years ago.

Frustrated with their respective consulting businesses, they had been sitting on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean when a vintage biplane flew below them. Wouldn't it be great to fly one of those full time, they thought. Notion became intent and a plan was hatched.

From California, Lister contacted one of her banker pals back in Philadelphia, Bill Bromley at First Sterling Bank, and pitched her scheme. Within two weeks, First Sterling had funded the $88,000 purchase of the biplane and Lister and Harnish were flying across the country from Sonoma to Philly.

Now after their first season of barnstorming, their wild idea still has lift under its wings. The pair pulled in more than $100,000 in ride revenues last year, much of which was eaten up by advertising and marketing costs, not to mention maintenance, fuel and insurance. This year, however, is looking better, and they have added a second plane to their repertoire.

TWILIGHT PATROLS

In November, facing exceedingly cold air even at 1,000 feet in the biplane, Harnish and Lister leased a 1940s-era Army Air Corps twin engine C-45 called the "Liberty Belle" that they flew all winter. Operating out of Northeast Airport, the Liberty Belle, which seats six and brings back memories of the skies over Europe, now offers twilight patrol around the Philadelphia cityscape.

Early last month Cherry Hill insurance agent Jack Gallagher took his six top agents on a flight in the Liberty Belle as a reward for jobs well done. "It provided a great deal of sense of adventure. There's an air of mystique about it," Gallagher said.

There are few people who escape the corporate world to do want they truly love to do and make a living at it. Harnish, 47, and Lister, 34, are two who've-done-its, at least for now. But the job is not all buzzing horse farms and twisting lazy eights. The two work very long hours to make sure ends meet.

"There's times when you sit in the office and there are 100 calls to return and only so many hours in the day, and the data base with all your customers on it crashes, and you say; "Hey this is just like having a job." But then there's times like flying by Philadelphia in the old warbird with a beautiful sunset and I look back and the guy behind me is crying because it reminds him of World War II so much, and I look over and there's Kate next to me and it's great," Harnish said.

Harnish's father had been in the Army Air Corp and he grew up around airplanes. Harnish worked three jobs while attending Ursinus College to pay for flying lessons and transferred to the University of New Mexico to get into the school's renowned aerospace curriculum. He earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace psychology.

Right after school he volunteered for the U.S. Navy. It was during the Vietnam War. He managed to get into flight training and was assigned as flight officer on A6-B Prowler jets launching off carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Harnish's job was jamming enemy radar systems, which gave him a heavy-duty introduction to computers -- then a new field. He ended his military career in Washington, D.C., teaching a course on information management for top military and law enforcement officers.

After leaving the military in 1977, he held a number of computer jobs, but, he said, "I continued to have this real strong interest in aviation."

The reality is that Harnish loves flying, loves airplanes even if he still has to balance it off against his consulting, which both he and Lister continue to do. Where their flying business will go is unclear. Both harbor doubts it will be a fixed pattern.

"We like to change what we do every three years or so. We're starters, We're not necessarily entertained by actually having to maintain the business," said Lister, a graduate of the College of Textile and Sciences and former lender at Girard Bank & Trust, Mellon Bank and Fidelity Bank before gliding off on her own as a consultant in 1986.

A day after flying 25 sorties in an air show, the pair talk about adding new airplanes and modes of aviation entertainment. They even dream of big business, of setting up barnstorming franchises around the country, of establishing an aviation theme park where people can get biplane rides, glider rides, balloon rides, and even engage in a virtual reality dog fight.

And who knows? With Tailspin Tommy's computer background and Cash Register Kate's business acumen, the sky could be the limit, or at least, virtual reality.

COPYRIGHT CityBusiness-USA Inc. 1993 Used with permission.