Flying circus

Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks, either individually or in groups called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes", it became popular in the United States during the Roaring Twenties.Barnstormers were pilots who flew throughout the country selling airplane rides and performing stunts; Charles Lindbergh first began flying in this capacity.

The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss had early flying exhibition teams, with solo flyers like Lincoln Beachey and Didier Masson also popular before World War I, but barnstorming did not become a formal phenomenon until the 1920s.

During World War I, the United States manufactured a significant number of Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes to train its military aviators and almost every U.S. airman learned to fly using the plane. After the war the U.S. federal government sold off the surplus materiel, including the Jennys, for a fraction of its initial value (they had cost the government $5,000 but were being sold for as low as $200). This allowed many servicemen who already knew how to fly the JN-4s, to purchase their own planes. The similar-looking Standard J-1 biplane was also available.

At the same time, numerous aircraft manufacturing companies sprang up, most going broke after building only a handful of planes. Many of these were reliable and even advanced designs which suffered from the failure of the aviation market to expand as expected, and a number of these found their way into the only active markets—mail carrying, barnstorming, and smuggling. Sometimes a plane and its owner would drift between the three activities as opportunity presented.

Combined with the lack of Federal Aviation Regulations at the time, these factors allowed barnstorming to flourish.

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