The flying devils

Foward: In this colorful chronicle of the earliest days of aviation, Bill Rhode recalls a time when the sight and sound of an airplane were enough to draw crowds from miles around. Rhode was one of a hardy band of barnstormers called the flying devils, who toured the South, putting on air shows for the locals, parachuting out of biplanes, and taking passengers for short hops. "We had not intended to be pioneers," Rhode writes, "We just wanted to fly and earn bread while doing so. But we were at that moment in history, pioneers nonetheless...We were bringing avaition to all towns, to everybody." In addition to being pioneers, Rhode and his friends were romantic figures to the young women who flocked to the airfields, and in this book the author describes the sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, encounters between the aviators and their admiring followers. Set against the backdrop of the rural South during the Depression, The Flying Devils evokes and exciting period not only in the history of one man's life, but in the history of the country.