b'.The Beginning continued from page 7Barnstorming Air Shows After WWI, Barnstorming air shows became popular and featured stunt pilots and wingwalkers. Before the barnstorming shows,spectators had to travel to airfields to seean exhibition. Barnstorming shows touredthe country performing a wide variety ofdeath defying stunts. Aviators offeredaffordable joy rides at the events. During the years 1922 to 1928 the GatesCurtiss JennyJN-4D Flying Circus was one of the most popularflying groups having been known to travelThe National Museum of The United States Air Force. Photo by Johnny Comstedt across every state in the union and also forThe Curtiss Jenny became Americas most famoushaving started the one dollar joy ride. Bill World War I training airplane. Generally used for primaryBrooks, a pilot in the group was known toflighttraining,someJennieswereequippedwithhave flown 980 passengers in one day. (Note: machine guns and bomb racks for advanced training.onedollar in 1925 is equivalent in purchasing The JN series began by combining the best featurespower to about $14.35 in 2018). The GatesoftheCurtissJandNmodels. A1915version,flying group was known to have flown aroundtheJN-3,supportedPershingsPunitiveExpedition1 million passengers.into Mexico in 1916, but the aircraft proved unsuitableBarnstorming saw its decline when theforfieldoperations.CurtissimprovedtheJN-3andfederal government placed new restrictionsredesignated in the JN-4. on air space. These restrictions put an endWith Americas entry into WWI on April 6, 1917, theto stunts at low level. Specifications on theSignal Corps ordered large quantities of JN-4s, and byconditions and maintenance of the Curtissthe time production was terminated after the Armistice,JN-4D planes, coupled with the fact that the more than 6,000 had been delivered, the majority ofmilitary stopped the sale of the Jenny (Curtiss them JN-4Ds.JN-4D) gave a final blow to barnstorming.After WWI, the Army sold hundreds of surplus JN-4sAt the end of the WWI, thousands of theto civilians. The airplane soon became the mainstayJennys were sold to civilians. The Curtiss JN-4Dof the barnstormers of the 1920s, and many Jenniesis almost synonymous with American aviation continued flying into the 1930s. in the 1920s. The Curtiss Jenny was the first mass-produced American aircraft, nicknamedthe Jenny first appeared in 1917. In 1917, the U.S. did not have aircraft capable of fighting in the skies over France. Even though the plane itself never saw combat, the vast majority of U.S. and Canadian pilots in World War I trained in Jennys.Large numbers of relatively inexpensive war surplus Jennys were available in the United States after 1918. The Jenny performed admirably as a trainer for the U.S. Air Service during World War I, but its more significant role in aviation history was as a barnstorming and mail-carrying airplane in the 1920s. Air Races BeginIn the mid-1920s and peaked during theWikipedia Photos Great Depression of the 1930s many peopleThe JN-4D on display at the National Museum ofwere unemployed and destitute.The United States Air Force was obtained from RobertDuring this time the National Air RacesPfeil of Taylor, Texas, in 1956.became extremely popular. Cleveland hosted https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum- most of the yearly contests, with Los Angeles Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/197406/curtiss- staging the others. Thanks to extensive national jn-4d-jenny/ media coverage, fans could learn about the contests from sources that included newspapers, 8 Military Appreciation Resource Magazine Thank You For Your Service'