How Gladys Ingle of the Thirteen Black Cats changed an airplane wheel in mid-air, and why barnstorming built modern aviation.
TaildraggerHow the Gates Flying Circus sold over a million Americans their first airplane ride for a dollar and launched the barnstorming era.
TaildraggerHow 1920s barnstormers turned surplus Jennies and farmers' hay fields into flying's first schools - and why Oshkosh carries on their legacy.
TaildraggerHow $50 surplus Curtiss JN-4 'Jenny' biplanes launched the barnstorming era and put ordinary Americans in the sky.
TaildraggerThe story of Ormer Locklear, the first wing walker, who invented aerial stunting in barnstorming's golden age before dying at age 28.
TaildraggerLincoln Beachey was America's greatest early aviator, whose death-defying stunts from 1910 to 1915 transformed the airplane from curiosity to cultural icon.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman became the world's first Black female pilot in 1921 after every American flight school turned her away - so she crossed the Atlantic to earn her license in France.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear of Greenville, Texas invented airplane-to-airplane transfers and became barnstorming's first true showman before dying at 28 in 1920.
TaildraggerBefore crossing the Atlantic, Charles Lindbergh spent years as a barnstormer, building the real-world skills that made his historic 1927 flight possible.
TaildraggerOrmer Locklear climbed out of a moving Curtiss Jenny in 1917 to fix a loose radiator cap - and accidentally invented American barnstorming.
TaildraggerHow the Gates Flying Circus flew over a million Americans in the 1920s and built the cultural foundation for commercial aviation.
TaildraggerHow Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon flew the first nonstop Pacific crossing in 1931 - and climbed onto the wing mid-flight to survive it.
TaildraggerBessie Coleman crossed the Atlantic to earn her pilot's license after every U.S. flight school refused to teach a Black woman to fly.
TaildraggerJimmy Angel crashed his Flamingo monoplane atop Venezuela's Auyán-tepui in 1937, proving the world's tallest waterfall existed.
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