Barnstormers of the 1920s

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Death-defying stunts such as leaping from plane to plane, dancing on the wings or bursting through walls of fire were all  in a day's work for airplane acrobats in the 1920s.Known as barnstormers, stuntmen and stuntwomen repeatedly risked their lives in a quest for thrills and entertainment to earn a living.
Many World War One pilots found themselves without jobs after the war and with the military reselling planes relatively cheaply in those post-war years, becoming a stunt pilot or aerialist was an appealing way to earn a living.

Meal with a view: Barnstormers perform a stunt that involved sitting at a table on top of an airplane dressed in cowboy outfits in the 1920s

Head for heights: A stunt man transferring from one plane to another while hanging upside down

Grip of steel: Stunt man Howard Sharen holding on to a rope on the end of an airplane

Although barnstormers often worked in solitude or in very small teams, some also put together large flying circuses with several planes and stunt people. The life of barnstormers has often been romanticised and they were frequently seen as heroes by an awe-struck public.
However, barnstormer Jessie Woods says of the life 'Don't let them kid you - it wasn't romantic. I slept on the bottom wing of an airplane. I learned how to sleep there without falling off.'  Good balance was needed to barnstorm as Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger, proved while playing tennis on top of a flying plane. Roy was killed in an accident in 1927, but not while she was performing one of her dangerous stunts.

Lucky escape: Pilot Howard Casterline crashed his airplane into a tree in Indiana. Casterline who can be seen climbing out of the plane survived the incident

Good sports: Two aerialists, Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger, play tennis atop this flying plane. Sadly, Roy was killed in an accident in 1927 after she walked into a plane propeller

Brave: Aerialists leapt from plane to plane while up in the air, danced or played tennis on the wings, and burst through walls of fire, as the aerialist in this photograph has just done

Her death, aged 25, was the result of accidentally walking into a propeller of a plane she had just started herself.
Ex-WWI pilot Ormer Locklear's party trick was hanging from a plane by one arm.
He is credited as one of the inventors of wing walking, which he used to make repairs to his plane mid-flight but his was another aviation career cut tragically short.
In 1920, he died during a movie shoot when the pilot of the plane he was in was blinded by some set lighting and crashed the aircraft. The incident was apparently captured on film and used in the movie, The Skywayman, which has since been lost.

Hanging on for life: Ex-WWI pilot Ormer Locklear hangs from the plane by one arm, in this shot. Locklear is credited as one of the inventors of wing walking, which he used to make repairs to his plane mid-flight

Expert timing: Stuntman Carl 'Poochy' Smith hangs from a rope and gets ready to transfer to a car

Timing: As the plane approaches, the stuntman is ready to make the leap. To be successful, this stunt requires a great deal of coordination between the driver of the car, the stuntman and the pilot

Dizzy heights: The stuntman in this picture performs a headstand at the front of the plane

Everyday situations immediately became amusing because they were performed so high in the sky such as Ken 'Fronty' Nichols who performed a stunt sitting at a table on top of an airplane dressed in a cowboy outfit.
Pilot Howard Casterline crashed his airplane into a tree in Indiana and miraculously was pictured climbing out of the plane unharmed.
Crashes such as this, and those that turned out less fortuitously, spurred the government to finally end barnstorming by the end of the 1920s.