Barnstormers

Some of the first forms of civil aviation in the United States were Barnstorming and Flying Circuses. These events really took off during the 1920’s as reliable military surplus biplanes from WWI were sold off to the public for a fraction of their cost.

Aviators took these aircraft and performed shows, sold airplane rides, and generally tried to impress people with their piloting skills in an era before Federal Aviation Regulations really took hold.

Barnstorming itself was a fairly egalitarian pursuit with women and minorities gaining fame and notoriety based on their skills in cockpit. It was a raucous era in aviation producing greats like Charles Lindberg, Katherine Stinson, and Bessie Coleman.

These barnstormers introduced America to the wonders and possibilities of commercial aviation. Victims of their own success, the Federal Government enacted a series of progressively more restrictive regulations. Those regulations coupled with the end of surplus biplane sales caused the practice of barnstorming to basically vanish by 1929.

As I pass into progressively less populated areas, my imagination has wandered with thoughts of what it would have been like to live in those heady days of early aviation. If you could get a plane and some training, you too could be a pilot.

Hopping from grass strip to grass strip across the prairie states would have been quite a bit faster and probably more exciting than walking. Barnstorming, smuggling, and delivering the mail could put food on the table, and no one was standing in TSA lines just to have to remove their shoes and their jackets.

Airplane in a Cornfield - Clinton County, IA

As I was trudging along thinking about simpler times, I glanced to my left. Low and behold, hearkening back to those heady early days of aviation, there was an airplane in a cornfield. The hanger was amongst the farms outbuildings, and a grass strip led from the door, down through the cornfield and, I assume, into the sky.

I’ve been looking for one of these throwbacks to the barnstorming era, and today, I actually got to see one!