What Was Barnstorming? The History of Barnstorming Explained!
At air shows today, you may see pilots perform all sorts of crazy maneuvers, from high-G stunts, to creating shapes and symbols with the help of other aircraft to drawing pictures in the sky with smoke from their engines. But none of this can rival the thrilling display of barnstormers.
Barnstormers were out-of-work military pilots who used the supposedly useless Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes of the First World War to perform dangerous air stunts to entertain the many Americans who had never seen an aircraft before.
Barnstorming made heroes of many of the former military men who embraced it. From doing remarkable acrobatic maneuvers while parachuting to doing unbelievable stunts on a plane, barnstormers did not just become heroes but inadvertently set the pace for civil aviation...