Ormer Locklear invented wing walking, became America's most famous barnstormer and aerial movie star, and died at 28 when Hollywood floodlights caused spatial disorientation during a filmed spin.
TaildraggerBefore Paris and the ticker-tape parade, Charles Lindbergh spent three years barnstorming Midwest pastures - the unglamorous apprenticeship that built the pilot who crossed the Atlantic.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey was the most famous pilot in the world in 1915 - until a structural failure over San Francisco Bay killed him at 28 before 300,000 witnesses.
TaildraggerHow the $50 Army surplus Curtiss JN-4 Jenny launched the barnstorming era and introduced millions of Americans to flight.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black woman to earn a pilot's license in 1921 by learning French and crossing an ocean to train in France after every American school refused her.
TaildraggerClyde Cessna taught himself to fly through a dozen crashes in a Kansas wheat field - and those failures built the most recognized name in general aviation.
TaildraggerPhoebe Omlie became the first woman to hold a U.S. federal transport pilot's license in 1929, starting as a barnstorming wing-walker before shaping national aviation policy.
TaildraggerIvan Gates turned barnstorming into a scalable business empire that put over a quarter million Americans in airplanes - more than any government program of the era.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black woman to earn an international pilot's license in 1921 after crossing the Atlantic to train in France when every American school refused her.
TaildraggerKatherine Stinson set cross-country distance records, performed night aerobatics with Roman candles, barnstormed Japan and China, and was still rejected by the Army in WWI.
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