Stunt Flying

stunt flying, the performance of aerial feats requiring great skill or daring.

Stunt flying as a generic term may include barnstorming (see below), crazy flying (the performance of comedic aerial routines), or any spectacular or unusual flying feat performed for film or television cameras or for any kind of public display or entertainment. Stunt flying may be performed by one or more pilots at the same time and with almost any kind of flying craft (including parachutes and gliders, as well as the more usual powered airplanes). While in the early days the term was given to the extreme combat maneuvers performed by aircraft in World Wars I and II and to aerobatic flying (before the latter developed into a sport), these usages have fallen away.

Although the beginnings of stunt flying are to be found in the “death-defying” performances of balloonists—such as those by the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont in the 1890s—stunt flying in powered aircraft started with the Wright brothers. In order to demonstrate the full capabilities of their designs, the Wrights engaged professional exhibition pilots, who began performing ever more daring stunts. Eugène Lefebvre was the first engineer and chief pilot of the Wright company in France. (On September 7, 1909, Lefebvre was the first pilot to die in an airplane crash. In the text following, pilots who died when their airplanes crashed or in aerial combat are noted with a death date.) In the United States the Wrights trained an exhibition team—the Wright Flyers—whose first outing was in June 1910, the stars of the team being Walter Brookins, Arch Hoxsey (died 1910), and Ralph Johnstone (died 1910). Brookins was famous for his spiral dives and steep turns employing 90 degrees of bank (i.e., with wings perpendicular to the ground).

The Wrights’ greatest rival, Glenn Curtiss, engaged one-time stunt parachutist Charles K. Hamilton to demonstrate Curtiss’s prizewinning Reims Racer in the early months of 1910, until Hamilton crashed and destroyed the machine (Hamilton was known to dive from an altitude of some 190 feet [60 metres], leveling out only when he reached 5 feet [1.5 metres] above the ground).

The most famous early stunt flyer was Lincoln Beachey (died 1915), who joined the Curtiss exhibition team in 1911 after having stunted with balloons and dirigibles. Beachey probably flew more shows in 1911–12 than any other pilot in the United States, and he perfected the art of flying “hands-off”—i.e., with both arms flung wide as he passed the grandstands. In June 1911, before 150,000 spectators at Niagara Falls, he flew over the falls and under the nearby suspension bridge and then dived into the gorge.

In November 1913 Beachey became the first to “loop the loop” in the United States, but the first flyer ever to loop was Russian flyer Petr Nesterov (died 1914, in one of the early dogfights of World War I). Nesterov performed his loop on September 9 (August 27, Old Style), 1913, a feat that was soon repeated by the French pilot Adolphe Pégoud (died 1915 in World War I air combat). Looping feats and records soon became the rage, and countless new gyrations were invented and performed at air displays.

Air meetings and races were as popular in Europe as in the United States, though they were held less frequently, and aerial experimentation in Europe tended to take place under more controlled conditions. Pégoud, test pilot for the manufacturer Louis Blériot, performed his loop as part of a series of experiments designed to test the limits of the airplane in August–September 1913. These experiments included inverting (flying upside down) and tailsliding his machine. Pégoud’s contemporaries on the display circuit in France included Roland Garros (died 1918 in World War I air combat), while in Britain their feats were emulated by flyers such as Gustav Hamel (died 1914). One of Hamel’s more famous looping passengers was the young Winston Churchill.

World War I aerial dogfighting provided the training ground for countless postwar stunt flyers, and in Europe the greatest surviving masters of aerial combat were snapped up as test pilots and demonstration pilots for the leading aircraft manufacturers. Rivalry between them led to development of the sport of competition aerobatics, which gradually codified the formats of maneuvers and contests and introduced regulations in the interests of safety.

Safety, however, was the last concern of the postwar barnstormers in the United States, who borrowed the term barnstorming from the theatrical companies that toured rural districts. A shortage of jobs and a surplus of inexpensive aircraft provided the impetus for war pilots returning home to start touring as stunt-flying entertainers, either solo or in operations so elaborate as to be called flying circuses.

Barnstorming was financed principally by the fares charged to passengers for short sight-seeing flights, and air shows were mounted to bring the paying public to the field that was temporarily hosting the attraction. In addition to aerobatic maneuvers and parachute jumping, wing walking became a favourite stunt with the barnstormers (Charles Lindbergh barnstormed early in his career and did wing walking as well as flying). Any city with bridges, particularly several bridges in a row, was a ready target for stunt flyers, who vied with each other to pass underneath them with the least clearance possible.

The late 1920s–’30s were the golden age of flying in the United States, and aircraft began to be built especially for the purposes of air sports—including stunt flying and air racing. American stars of the era included Al Williams, Jimmy Doolittle, Joe Mackey of the Linco Flying Aces, and Freddie Lund (died 1931) and Tex Rankin of the Taperwing Waco Stunt Team. Lund was also a noted stunt flyer for Hollywood movies. One venue for these flyers was the world-famous National Air Races, which included slots for pilots invited from all over the world to give flying exhibitions. These races were held annually during most of the years between 1920 and 1951 (usually beginning in Cleveland, Ohio) and were revived in a limited form in 1964.

Another venue for stunt pilots was the air show. At such programs the crowd would be entertained with aerial feats. For instance, stunt pilot Milo Burcham (died 1944), a master of crazy flying, performed a routine in which he would lose a wheel on take off and frantically attempt to land without it. (There was another wheel too small for the crowd to see that actually permitted him to land.) Inverted flying was another favourite air-show stunt, and there was fierce competition to set up records for flying upside down, rolling, and performing the most loops (either normal loops or outside loops). Mike Murphy, a leading light of postwar international aerobatics, worked up his “Cheek-to-Cheek” stunt with an aircraft built to fly and land inverted; he also flew a Piper Cub from a landing rack bolted to the top of a moving car (and landed on it).

After World War II a greater concern for safety curtailed the more extreme daredevil activities, and severe penalties were introduced for such feats as flying under bridges. However, exhibitions such as crazy flying and truck-top landing (which demand enormous precision and skill) are still popular attractions at air displays. “Girl-on-a-wing” performances may also still be seen, but only with the safety precaution of securing the wing walker in a firmly attached harness; the old art of wing walking—literally clambering over the wings holding on to the flying wires—has long since been abandoned.

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For experiencing what the original barnstorming and stunt-flying days must have been like, no better arena exists than the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA’s) annual convention in late summer at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. EAA members fly vintage civilian and military aircraft while performing feats and stunts. Replicas of the very earliest aircraft may also be seen, often flying or capable of flight, and provide a vivid reminder of the fragile machines in which the pioneering stunt flyers regularly performed.