No head on a quicker swivel could have seen it coming; from out of the blinding eastern sun, a circus of lethal Fokker DVIIs pounced on four Bristol Fighters in formation. At the far right of the Brisfit formation was pilot Lieutenant Coach and observer Lieutenant Adair, both noticing the attack too late. They huddled into the fuselage as splinters of wood fragmented into their faces and holes were drawn into the drumming green fabric of their wings from the supersonic bullets fired from a squadron of twin Spandau machine guns. It all happened at a remarkable pace; as quickly as the Germans cracked their rounds into the Bristol formation, they flew through it to zoom climb into another advantageous position for attack. To ride the Hun’s tails as they passed down through the formation, Coach unhesitatingly dumped the nose of the burly Bristol Fighter and began to press the attack. Boring a hole through the freezing sky and immediately squaring up a Hun in his sights, Coach squeezed the trigger on the stick and a volley of rounds was pumped into the left side of an unfortunate diving Fokker. Without warning, as speed was violently increasing in the dive, the German’s upper left wing folded in on itself as the pilot initiated the pull-up, but down he went in a tumbling mass of fabric-coated scaffolding with no chance of survival. As quickly as that victory was scored, the entire sky erupted into a vicious hornet’s nest of activity. With the throttle hard against the firewall, the force of gravity smashed the Brisfit crew into the floor of the aircraft as Coach hauled the stick into his lap to keep their machine in a constant state of movement.

The Rolls-Royce Falcon engine was sounding reverberant, brutal waves of exertion through their bodies and the propeller was tunneling holes through the atmosphere at over 2000 revolutions per minute. Under the strain of a six-G pull towards the upward vertical position, Adair, bullishly forcing his head to move continuously under the aggressive forces, spotted another rabid Fokker attempting to bite the flesh out of their Brisfit. The DVIIs cherry red cowling and lozenge wings reflected deceivingly innocent rays of sunshine as its teeth inched ever closer to sinking into their aircraft. From the time it took to pull the nose up from pointing earthward to swinging upward through the horizon, Adair muscled the twin-Lewis gun arrangement onto the Fokker and rapidly fired a burst directly into its engine compartment, setting the entire aircraft aflame as if he stuck a match and threw it at the Dutch bus. Down it went into an ungracefully steep dive ahead of an oily-black cloud, but there was no time to celebrate. Countless silver-winged crates cluttered the sky no matter where one looked. Innumerable tracer rounds weaved geometrical patterns throughout the clouds until the atmosphere ran out of blue and the clouds ran out of cotton. Wind was slapping their faces from all sides as they wrenched their way through the confusing mass of activity and necks were twisting to their limits to maintain situational awareness. Their Brisfit was now upside down in a swarm of angry wasps as they pulled through a loop, both pilot and observer scouring for another target while keeping their tail clear of unfriendlies. With the wires and engine screaming, Adair’s whirlwind eyes, being more technically trained than Coach’s, spotted another pugnacious DVII in a bank and inching into an attacking position from their left side, almost exactly perpendicular to their line of travel.

Again, gritting his teeth and swinging the Scarff machine gun assembly around to meet the attacking German, Adair pulled the triggers while he and their Brisfit were upside down and split the Hun aircraft in two; the upper wing fluttering into the ether and shattering itself while the heavier fuselage sank towards the earth like it was personally thrown from the hand of God. At the same time as this action, Coach spotted an enemy aircraft on their nose and forced the stout two-seater Bristol out of the loop on the “backside”, in an inverted position nearly 45 degrees nose down. His move was too late; as soon as Coach began the rollout, the Fokker in his sights instantly detonated from incendiary rounds fired from another Bristol Fighter’s guns. Continuing the rollout with the stick planted against one leather-covered leg, Coach’s eyes were scanning the sky to the tune of Adair’s twin-Lewis’ firing incessantly at another assailant. The burley two-seater was now in a left bank, standing on its left wingtip, and a German was approaching them from directly above. Looking back while in the sweeping turn across the horizon, Coach spotted Adair’s twin barrels pointing directly upwards into the infinite blue sky with Adair’s back exactly parallel to the ground, still standing up and battling the unpredictable rolling and pulling forces of their aircraft. German bullets were zipping through their machine and the unmistakable crack of machine gun rounds rang in their ears but Coach had no time to check the result of this brawl, for his eyes immediately went ahead again to ensure they did not collide with any of the other machines.

He rolled wings level and pulled hard back on the stick again, sending his cheeks almost down to his feet, just in time to meet another Fokker diving on a fellow Bristol off to the right side. Slamming in full right rudder, the Brisfit keeled over on one wingtip and eventually tipped over onto its back. Releasing the pressure on the rudder bar and pulling through the horizon, now pointing directly towards the moonscape earth and behind the Fokker, Coach’s gauntleted hand trembled and his helmeted ears echoed as his Vickers gun pumped numerous rounds into the German before it caught fire and continued its journey down through the center of the earth. In a matter of milliseconds after this transaction, while their Bristol Fighter was pointed straight down with a speed in excess of 150 miles per hour, a Fokker Dr.1 was flying straight up to meet them nose-to-nose. Through the dirty smoke of the billowing DVII, the triplane fired tracers that went over the top wing of their Brisfit, followed soon after by the Dr.1 itself, and once more Coach wrenched the Brisfit out of the dive to meet the attack. This move was balked yet again as another DVII came at them from above, fired its volley, and flew over the top wing in a matter of a second. Releasing his pull for a fraction of a moment to dodge the incoming fire, Coach hauled on the stick to resume the chase for the triplane, flexing every muscle in his body and craning his neck around to lock eyes on the enemy airman. He did, just in time to see the triplane rudder over into a magnificently sharp horizontal turn to get its nose onto their bus. Coach, while looking up and to the right at the ‘tripe’ against a veil of friendly and enemy aircraft in an unorganized frenzy, threw the stick and rudder harder over to the right to avoid the inevitable machine gun fire. Before either pilot knew it, Adair’s fire rang over Coaches head from the rear, over the Bristol’s top wing, and into the brownish-green fuselage of the triplane. The Dr.1’s pilot never reacted to the burst and the aircraft gently nosed over, never recovering from the action. The pilot had clearly been eliminated.

The sky was still a frenzy of twisting and diving and turning and climbing and banking and burning aircraft with no end or exit in sight for any of the titan players. Coach had a surplus of energy after chasing the DVII down through the vertical so back he pulled again on the stick to gain more altitude. A Brisfit was being chased directly upwards by a Fokker off to the left, German tracers impacting the wings of the Bristol as it zoomed up and past their own bus; a triplane’s wheels nearly swept off the top wing of their machine while its pilot was trying to escape the fire from a squadron mate; pouring out of the sky in a burning heap came another Brisfit, out of control, off to their lower right; two DVIIs, machine guns blazing, were latched onto the tail of a Sopwith Pup that had joined the fight below and to the left; it was almost too much for the senses to process. Eyes were fervently scanning the sky, the mind couldn’t complete a single thought before moving to the next, hands and muscles and lips vibrated and seized with adrenaline, shouts and screams were defiantly yelled into the void under the strain of the fight, engines surged and screamed and roared with assertiveness. While looking left to spot a strategic reentry into the fray, German bullets unexpectedly poured into their fuselage from the right. Shattered glass sprayed into Coaches lap from the instruments and windscreen being shot out of their mountings, a few bullets even wedging themselves into the floor of Adair’s section of the fuselage. Unhesitatingly, Coach yanked the stick back with all his might, shoved in a boot full of right rudder, and forced the aircraft into a snap roll to throw off the Hun’s aim. During the evasive maneuver, Adair was almost thrown to the floor but still managed to grip his guns and remain upright in the nacelle. Their heads were pulled down and almost into the instrument panel, goggles needed readjustment, sweat was pulled from the temples to the chins- It worked.

The aircraft spun horizontally like a top and no more machine gun fire was teething into their aircraft. Releasing the controls, Coach let the Brisfit’s nose fall through the horizon once again to recover airspeed. The fight wouldn’t let them off that easily, however. Above on their right side was another feral DVII looking to add a kill to its credit. Again, pulling hard back on the stick and rolling into the threat, Coach’s and Adair’s muscles strained against the force of five times the normal weight of gravity to swing their nose around into the threat, dodging multiple other machines in the process. Coach placed the German in his gunsight and squeezed off a burst of fire long enough to ignite the Hun’s aircraft and send it down at the head of a deep-black meteoric streak of flame. After following that aircraft down with his eyes, Coach looked to his left and right, through the bird cage of struts and wires, to determine the next best course of action. German and British airplanes alike were sweeping through the sky as if they were on predetermined rails, the sheen from elegant, glistening wings danced in the current of an eruptive atmosphere, streaks of fire from burning biplanes illuminated the entire scene like candles in a hallway of the Lord’s palace; it was truly a grand sight to behold. With more fight in them, Coach and Adair decided to stay in it until they were out of the two most important things required for their job: fuel and ammunition. Shoving the Bristol Fighter on its wingtip in a sweeping right-hand turn, Coach spotted a Fokker diving into an attacking posture from their forward left quarter position through the wires and struts of the two left wings. Doing nothing but removing the pressure from the right side of the rudder bar and applying maximum pressure on the left side of the rudder bar, the nose of the Brisfit sliced a parabolic arc across the sky from right to left, but there wasn’t enough time to meet the threat nose to nose. The DVII swept over the Brisfit, so close that the sound of its engine trumped the mighty Rolls-Royce in the Bristol, and entered a right bank as it flew over them.

With the aircraft now on its left wingtips Coach muscled the stick back into his lap and pulled as hard as he could, shoving his feet into the floor of the aircraft while screaming as loud as his lungs would allow to catch the Fokker before their noses met in space again. With muscles straining and jaws clenched, the nose of the Brisfit pulled along the horizon until the top profile of the enemy was seen through Coach’s gunsight and, with a viciousness never before seen, Coach sent a line of tracers directly into the cockpit of the DVII as it swept nearly into a firing position, effectively vaporizing the enemy pilot. Adair was still busy fighting his own battles standing in the aft cockpit, and while Coach was describing his parabola across the sky, Adair’s twin Lewis was spitting red-hot fire at another triplane that had joined the fight; Adair holding his guns steady on the enemy as if their Brisfit was standing still in midair despite the clouds, sky, ground, and other airplanes being unforgivingly tossed about his field of vision. The triplane’s Spandau machine guns spat just enough bullets to burn holes through the fabric of the tail section, but Adair’s guns proved more accurate. His burst disintegrated the enemy aircraft, ending its rain of fire and adding another victory to the team’s credit. From directly underneath their Brisfit and unseen by the pair, another Fokker pulled vertically upwards and fired a stream of bullets into their machine. More wood splintered and fabric ripped away as the windstream carried the shards of airplane into infinity. Adair was hard at work in the rear, firing his guns at any opportunity that presented itself. Coach reactively dumped the nose of the machine to swiftly change the geometry of the fight, but, apparently, out of ammunition, Adair’s fire ceased. Looking over his right shoulder while the forces of gravity attempted to toss him out of his wicker seat, Coach’s worst nightmare navigated its way from the subconscious into reality- There was Adair, braced against the Scarff ring in the rear nacelle, holding his left arm and attempting to stop the bleeding from German rounds that shattered his forearm. More bullets impacted their bus from the left while the machine continued pitching down. As Adair let out a horrific, painful screech, Coach felt a sting from the rear, as if a snake extended itself out of an Amazonian bush and latched into his middle back. His breathing and heart rate increased. He wasn’t sure why he could taste metal. Why was he dizzy now? That sound he heard again was more bullets impacting the machine from the right. Fabric stripped away from the wings, exposing the inner workings of their crate and the engine began to sound as if the oil was replaced with magnesium. Is this really how it was supposed to en-

January 26, 1918.

My ideal barnstormer is a man who knows his machine like he knows the fingers on his hands. He can sense when it is happy, excited, dejected, or angry and knows how to interpret every rattle and shimmy in the stick and rudder pedals and has an extraordinarily tuned ear to the hum of its heartbeat in the engine. He thinks of his machine as a person, as an extension of himself. His hands and feet needn’t even rest on the controls for his mind does all the work. Where he thinks of taking his airplane, his airplane takes him because that is their relationship. Upon landing after a particularly stressful experience, he gives his airplane a tender pat on the back and a thank you because they are deeply rooted friends and care for one another greatly. In the evening, when the stars have completed their voyage across the night sky and a warm, invitingly orange sun crests the treeline, he embraces his airplane with a gentle touch and a soft good morning to wake it up for another day of amiable adventure. In turn his airplane thanks him for the level of care it receives, and carries him faithfully from field to field and responds dutifully to his suggestions. 

My ideal barnstormer is a man of the people. He could carry a conversation with a door then bend over and sell a ride to the doorknob. No matter where he is at any given time he is welcomed as a friend and with smiles, and he returns the sentiment. He gracefully assists his trusting passengers into the front cockpit as the engine idly ticks over and does it with a grin. Behind that helping hand is an airman dressed in the ideal manner: worn in lace-up riding boots with a hardly noticeable trace of brown polish but scuffed from climbing about the airplane, riding breeches that aren’t too wide and not too stiff, tucked in collared shirt that has been slept in and is complete with a knotted tie, a leather flying jacket that is just beginning to crack at the wrists and on the back from the elements, and lack of conditioner, leather gloves that fit like skin over his hands, a bare leather flying helmet that is wrinkled from yearly use, and triplex flying goggles from a bygone war. This he considers his uniform and thus takes pride in the few wrinkles, splotches of oil, and occasional dirt stains which symbolize his experience and are presented as his medals. Together, with his pal the airplane, he aims to please and to put smiles on faces and create memories that will last for eternity. At the end of the day, when his bill has been paid at the local cafe and he settles back down next to his machine, he knows he has done something for the average person that has left a lasting impression on them. 

My ideal barnstormer knows there is no individual more confident in their flying abilities than him. He knows he could fly his old bus out of a tennis court and land it in the parking lot. There is no one that can outfly him because he is one with his airplane and the others are not. They are simply operators and he does not identify with them. He is not boastful but knows how to successfully push his limits. He studies his runways and thinks through every possible scenario before each takeoff and landing. He can slip his machine to an inch above the ground and still track straight before touching down on the smallest of runways. He doesn’t need any gauges to show angle of attack or engine revolutions or airspeed or turn coordination; he feels it in the stick and rudder pedals and on the sides of his head and heard through the strain of the engine and the wind in the wires. He recognizes immediately when his friend, his airplane, tells him the direction of the wind and whether or not his friend is comfortable with the conditions. Together they decide what they like and what they don’t like and what is needed from each other to accomplish the task at hand.

My ideal barnstormer is comfortable on the land. He sleeps under the wing of his tired old bus next to the warmth of a campfire and wakes up to the morning dew dripping down onto the grass. If there is a stream or lake nearby he unlaces his boots, hangs his clothes, and enjoys the cold, fresh water engulfing his body on a summer day. He might put some in a pot, boil it for sterilization, and drink it if it is not immediately determined drinkable. If in between towns, he heats his food over that campfire and enjoys it because it is simple and crude and somewhat filling. In town, however, he will most definitely indulge in burgers and milkshakes and hotdogs and classic food for the American man in the local diner. Back with his airplane, his friend, as a foredrop he leans against a tree listening to the simple tune of  a breeze and journals and reads and thinks at his own leisure. He has no schedule apart from nature’s own- if his stay in that location has lapsed, indicated by the buildup of cumulonimbus or jailing stratus, then he will simply pack up his things into his airplane and depart for nowhere in particular. 

My ideal barnstormer knows how to enjoy each flight. He happily embraces the wind against his face as it slips by the windscreen. He sticks his arm out of the cockpit and allows the slipstream to play with his arm like he allows his arm to play in the slipstream. The different colors soaking the earth appeal to his sensitive eyes; green fields that ebb and flow in color and shape as if they were as fluid as the ocean. Different shades of brown streaking off thick trees that are growing dense forests of vivid green leaves, each leaf a different color than the last. Light tints of gray and black on the ground as a shadow casts its cool shade on a hidden piece of golden earth. The characteristics of the dome of sky through which he is flying does not escape his thoughtful gaze; streaks of silvery white cirrus clouds up high, tinted by light shadows and faint rainbows as some sunlight pierces their crystallized vapor. Rolling, swollen white cumulus clouds outlined with yellow sunshine against an infinitely deep blue backdrop gently hovering in the air as if they were all just pedestrians on a street, waiting to say hello to each other. As he transitions his view to inside the cockpit his eyes gently sway from the clouds, trees, hayfields, and barns to the bouncing fabric ensconcing the fascinating inner workings of his wings. The taught flying wires hardly move in the blast of wind but the fabric jubilantly dances and drums along to the air whipping by at nearly one hundred miles per hour, as if to convey how much fun it is having out there. Finally his eyes do reach the cockpit, that cave of intriguing shapes and knobs behind a stoic glass windscreen, and he drags them along his boots resting on the rudder pedals, split by the stick which is gripped by his gloved right hand and slightly trembling from the vibration of a roaring engine, or perhaps a beating heart, to his gloved left hand resting on the throttle, up to the numerous dials that garland the varnished wooden instrument panel. He scans along this board of circles and interprets their bouncing needles to the din of over two thousand revolutions per minute, closes his eyes under their triplex goggles, and captures the moment like a camera captures a photo. Every detail. He cannot wait to record it all in his journal when he lands. And when he does land in that hay field and rolls out his sleeping bag and looks out into a crystal clear starry night before drifting off, he smiles.  

My ideal barnstormer is who I inspire to be.

_{*Not my photo. Credit goes to the original photographer.}