Ormer Locklear, the Man Who Walked the Wings, and the Curtiss Jenny Barnstormers Who Sold America Its First Airplane Ride

Ormer Locklear was an early aviation daredevil who, in 1919 and 1920, became a national celebrity by climbing out of a flying airplane and walking on its wings - and by transferring from one aircraft to another in midair using a rope ladder. He was one of thousands of post-war barnstormers who used cheap military-surplus Curtiss “Jenny” biplanes to introduce ordinary Americans to flight, one farm pasture at a time. Together, these performers built the public appetite for aviation that made the airline age possible.

Who Was Ormer Locklear, the “Man Who Walked the Wings”?

Ormer Locklear was a Texan, born near Fort Worth in 1891. When the United States entered World War I, he joined the Army as a flying cadet, learned to fly the Curtiss Jenny at a Texas training field, and became an instructor.

He did not invent wing-walking to thrill crowds. He invented it out of practicality. The Jenny’s engine was prone to fouling - a radiator cap could work loose, a wire could need tending - and in that era, the fix was simply to climb out and address it in flight.

Locklear discovered he had a knack for moving around on the aircraft and no fear of it. Soon he was doing it to impress fellow cadets, standing up in the slipstream with his arms spread. His instructors were horrified. Then officers started coming out to watch, and the legend began.

What Was the Curtiss Jenny, and Why Was It So Cheap?

The Curtiss JN-4 - “Jenny,” from saying “JN” quickly - was the queen of American training aircraft. It was a large, gentle, forgiving biplane with two open cockpits, a hand-swung wooden propeller, and a 90-horsepower OX-5 engine.

It flew slowly by design. A Jenny lifted off at about 45 mph and cruised around 60 to 65 mph. That slowness sounds like a weakness, but it was the entire reason the barnstorming era existed: an airplane that flies that slowly is one a person can stand and walk on top of.

When the war ended in November 1918, the Army was left with thousands of surplus Jennys, many still in their shipping crates. The government sold them off for almost nothing. You could buy a genuine, airworthy Curtiss Jenny for as little as $200 - some assembly required.

What Were Barnstormers, and How Did They Work?

America in 1919 had almost no aviation infrastructure - few airports, no control towers, no Federal Aviation Administration, no licenses, and no medical certificates. A person could buy an airplane, teach themselves to fly it in a matter of days, and be charging money for a show by the weekend. Many did exactly that. Many also died doing it.

The survivors became known as barnstormers. They would fly low over a small farm town, cut the engine to draw everyone’s attention, then land in a pasture and taxi up to a barn - which instantly became hangar, ticket office, and billboard. “Storming the barns” gave the practice its name.

They struck a deal with the farmer for the use of the field, then waited for a crowd. They rarely waited long. Most rural Americans in 1919 had never seen an airplane up close, and standing next to one - touching the fabric, smelling the castor oil the engines burned - was an event.

Why Did the $5 Airplane Ride Matter So Much?

The core pitch was simple: five dollars for a ride. That was a significant sum in 1919 - a good portion of a week’s wages - but people paid it.

Farmers who had never traveled more than 20 miles from home climbed into the front cockpit and looked down on their own town for the first time. For the first time in their family’s history, someone saw the whole farm, the church steeple, and the river bend all at once.

That five-dollar ride is the moment flight stopped being a distant rumor from the war and became something a regular person could actually touch. The barnstormers introduced an entire country to the sky and, in doing so, built the demand that aviation needed to grow.

What Made Wing-Walking and the Airplane Transfer So Dangerous?

Wing-walking was not a casual stroll on a flat surface. The top wing of a Jenny was fabric stretched over wood. Step on the fabric and your foot goes straight through it. Performers had to step on the ribs and hold the flying and landing wires that braced the biplane together - all while a 70-mph wind tried to peel them off.

Locklear’s signature act was the plane change. Two Jennys flew in formation, one stacked slightly above and ahead of the other. A rope ladder trailed from the upper aircraft into the slipstream. Locklear would leave his cockpit, walk to the wingtip, grab the whipping ladder with his bare hands, and then release his own airplane entirely.

For a few seconds he was attached to nothing but a rope ladder, dangling roughly 1,000 feet above the ground between two aircraft. Then he climbed hand-over-hand into the second machine. This trick made him the highest-paid daredevil in America.

Critically, the barnstormers generally wore no parachutes. Parachutes existed, but most performers declined them - some citing bulk, some superstition, most simply pride. The crowd knew there was no safety net, and that knowledge was the entire show.

How Did Ormer Locklear Die?

Hollywood came calling, and Locklear traveled to California to star in a picture for Universal. Handsome and fearless, he performed his wing walks and plane changes for the cameras, and audiences adored him.

In August 1920, Locklear was filming a movie called The Skywayman. A scene called for a night dive toward a set of spotlit oil derricks, with Locklear pulling out at the last moment as he always did. The plan was for the ground crew to cut the spotlights as his cue to recover, so he would know where the ground was in the dark.

The lights never cut. No one knows for certain why. Locklear and his longtime pilot Milton Elliott rode the Jenny straight into the ground. Locklear was 28 years old. The filmmakers finished the picture, included his death scene, and audiences lined up to see it.

What Did the Barnstormers Leave Behind?

The barnstorming era carried a heavy price. These were pioneers performing near-impossible feats over open ground with no rules, no radios, no parachutes, and aircraft built from wire, glue, and Irish linen. The list of those who died young is long.

But their legacy is enormous. That reckless, dangerous flying circus did what no government program could: it made America want to fly. By reaching thousands of small towns, the barnstormers built the audience and the demand for aviation.

Many of the farm kids who watched them grew up to become airline captains, wartime aces, and aircraft engineers. Charles Lindbergh himself barnstormed in a Jenny - bought for about $500 - and walked wings in the pastures of the South and Midwest before he ever flew the Atlantic. The barnstormers were not a sideshow to aviation history; they were its seedbed.

When the government finally stepped in with the Air Commerce Act of 1926 - requiring licenses, inspecting aircraft, and building real airports - some old-timers complained that the romance was being killed. But the regulations also reduced the funerals. Many of those rules were, quite literally, written in the blood of the pilots who flew before them.

Key Takeaways

• Ormer Locklear (1891–1920) pioneered wing-walking and the midair “plane change,” becoming America’s highest-paid aerial daredevil in 1919–1920.
• The Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”, powered by a 90-hp OX-5 engine and cruising near 60 mph, was sold as war surplus for as little as $200, making the barnstorming era possible.
• Barnstormers charged about $5 to give ordinary Americans their first airplane ride, building nationwide demand for aviation.
• Wing-walkers and daredevils flew without parachutes, and many, including Locklear, died young - he was killed filming The Skywayman in August 1920 at age 28.
• The barnstormers seeded the modern aviation age; even Charles Lindbergh learned his craft in a $500 Jenny before his transatlantic flight, and the Air Commerce Act of 1926 later brought formal safety regulation.