They flew their rickety aircraft within a few feet of the ground, looped them again and again in dangerous maneuvers and roared earthward in seemingly suicidal dives, pulling out at the very last minute. Some clambered out onto the wings thousands of feet above the ground to do handstands, swung from ropes to transfer from one plane to another, or hung suspended from the struts of their aircraft and dropped onto other vehicles — planes, speeding boats or automobiles. These were the danger-loving fliers of aviation’s early days, widely known as barnstormers.

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In the aftermath of World War I, a select group of these daredevils found new audiences, performing their stunts in the silent feature films and serials that proliferated throughout the 1920s. The novelty of flying was highly appealing to film producers, and audiences of the day were fascinated by this new technology and its ever-present dangers. An elite group of pilots would gain fame from their cinematic exploits. Dick Kerwood, Al Wilson, Frank Tomick, Ormer Locklear and Dick Grace all started out performing their stunts on the county fair circuit — until the movie industry made them famous. Sadly, the breathtaking stunts that wowed movie audiences also claimed the lives of many skilled aviators during those heady years. It was no wonder that stunt pilots became known as the ‘Squadron of Death.’

Efforts to make the stunts appear more realistic onscreen often led to some unintended consequences. Joe Bonomo, who did many parachute jumps in his career, described one scene that almost resulted in his drowning when he bailed out of a plane over water. He and another performer were supposed to leap from an aircraft with only one parachute, but when no other stunter would agree to jump with him, he decided to use a dummy — which proved to be a wise decision.

When Bonomo hit the water after the jump, the wind was blowing violently and his parachute was pulled through the water like a sail at a rapid clip. Using the dummy as both life preserver and shield (to block the water hitting his face), Bonomo managed to stay conscious. It was almost half an hour before a speedboat finally arrived to pick him up. Bonomo later quipped, ‘I’m probably the only man in the world who owes his life to a dummy.’

Such quick thinking under pressure was common among stunt pilots — and many would owe their lives to it. Ormer Locklear had built a reputation as a fearless flier long before he started stunt-flying, while he was serving as an instructor for the U.S. Army Air Service. When the radiator cap blew off his aircraft during a training flight, for example, he casually climbed out and stuffed a rag in the opening to prevent boiling water from blowing back into the cockpit. In 1919, while performing at a carnival, he made what may have been the first public transfer from one plane to another in midair. It was at such carnivals and fairs that Locklear pioneered many of the eye-popping stunts other wing-walkers would copy in the years to come.

Locklear eventually made his way to Hollywood. One of his first films was The Great Air Robbery, which enabled him to perform many of his signature moves. In one scene he changed planes in midair, and in a later sequence he climbed down from a plane to a speeding car, fought with the villain, then grabbed the undercarriage of the plane above him and climbed back into it just as the car overturned and crashed.

In 1920 Locklear and his friend and pilot Milton ‘Skeets’ Elliott were hired by producer William Fox to do aerial scenes for the film The Skywayman. Locklear performed a variety of hair-raising stunts for that movie, including a train-to-plane transfer and wing-walking. He even performed at night — rare at the time — illuminated by searchlights.

On August 2, 1920, he and Elliot were to execute the film’s final aerial stunt, a spiraling dive at night over oil fields near Los Angeles from 5,000 feet with phosphorus flares glowing on the wings to give the impression the plane was on fire. Locklear had told the director to kill the searchlights illuminating the dive to signal when it was time for the pilot to pull out. But for some reason the lights were never turned off, and when Locklear and Elliot finally realized how low they had fallen, it was too late. The plane crashed into the pool of an oil well, killing both occupants.

Not one to sacrifice exciting film footage, producer Fox took advantage of the publicity and rushed the film into release — including the final, fatal plunge. To his credit, however, the moviemaker did earmark 10 percent of the film’s profits for the families of the men who had died.

Clearly, safety precautions were seldom uppermost in the minds of early stunt fliers. Few used parachutes, and often the only safety device involved in stunt sequences was a rope tied to the plane’s strut and the ankle of the performer. In a way, stuntmen seemed eager to tempt fate.

Earl Burgess, who had also served as a flying instructor during World War I, became a barnstormer at the war’s end. Hired as the stuntman in a film that was eventually dubbed Sky Eye, he executed plane-to-plane transfers, a leap from a plane to a speeding train, and a fight on the wings of an aircraft in flight.

On February 6, 1920, Burgess was doing a scene in a film for comedian Chester Conklin and accompanied by flier Walter Hawkins. Like too many stunt fliers, Burgess had refused to wear a parachute. According to some reports, he was also out of condition and overweight. He was apparently supposed to climb out on a wing, simulate a fight with a dummy, knock the dummy (the ‘villain’) off the plane, then climb back into the cockpit.

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