That is one beautiful airplane. I've never flown a Waco, or even sat in one, but have flown other open biplanes and several different aerobatic airplanes. Being aerobatic or not, for an airplane, has little to do with the engine and everything to do with the airframe. There are Cessna 152s (the smallest Cessna) that are aerobatic, and even aerobatic sailplanes with no engines at all. Conversely, many very powerful WW2 fighters had significant aerobatic restrictions (in the P-51D Mustang, for example,snap-rolls are prohibited; inverted flight is limited to 10 seconds because the engine loses oil pressure, very expensive). Other fighters had other significant limitations. MIGs in Korea never dived because they would become unrecoverable at dive speeds that were easy for an F-86. And so forth.
Open cockpits can be amazingly cold, even in summer in Florida. All you've got to do is climb, and you can get as cold as you want or can stand.
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-- Carl
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