![]() Veteran aviators purchased these surplus planes and became the first barnstormers, itinerant pilots who provided many rural Americans with their first experience of flight. Anyone who wanted to fly an airplane could do so. When the war ended in 1918, surplus planes, mostly Curtiss JN-4D biplanes, also known as Jennys, were both available and affordable.ĭuring the postwar years, the civil aviation industry was in its infancy, and a pilot’s license was little more than an honorary certificate. World War I created the first demand for planes and pilots, and although more than nine thousand men trained to fly, fewer than eight hundred of them actually saw combat. ![]() In the early part of the twentieth century, most people had only heard of airplanes. ![]() towns putting on air shows and selling plane rides. Originally a theater term, “barnstorming” refers to pilots and aerial performers who traveled between small, rural U.S. ![]()
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