his mother. She replied simply that, "If you really want to fly, that's what you should do." Looking at him without emotion she said, "You must go. You must lead your own life. I mustn't hold you back. Only I can't see the time when we'll be together again."6
On March 22, 1922, he said goodbye to his mother in Madison and set out on his motorcycle for Lincoln, Nebraska, arriving alone on April 1. His mother moved out of the apartment and back to Detroit where she secured another teaching job in the high school, and where she remained for the rest of her life. Students at the Detroit High School would later nickname her "Stone Face."
In 1922 aviation was in its infancy in this country, limited primarily to military use, and "barnstorming," the equivalent of airborne circus rides, offered by lone pilots flying between rural fields. In many ways European aviation was well ahead of American regular passenger routes had already been established between Amsterdam and London.
The planes "manufactured" by the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation were actually modified and rehabed surplus Army Aviation training biplanes. They were converted for civilian use and equipped with a watercooled V8 engine which turned out approximately 150 horsepower. The company was owned by Ray Page, and the only regular student enrolled for flight instruction in 1922 was Charles Lindbergh. The company was about to be sold by Page. Lindbergh did not know this at the time he turned over the remainder of the $500.00 he owed for the flight instruction and which Page had quickly demanded upon his arrival.
Several people ended up giving lessons to Lindbergh while he was at the aircraft company, although his chief instructor was supposed to be Ira Biffle, a retired Army Air Corps instructor. Biffle, however, had lost his nerve after the flying death of a close friend, and gave many excuses why he could not take Lindbergh up on the days and times he had scheduled.
While at the school Lindbergh did form a friendship with a sixteen year old named Bud Gurney which lasted for several years. Gurney would hang around the mechanics who worked at the company, doing odd jobs, and hope that he also would be taught to fly. It was Gurney who began calling Lindbergh "Slim," a nickname which, like "The Lone Eagle," followed him for the remainder of his years. Lindbergh also spent many hours with the mechanics, learning how to service the planes, attach propellers, and complete repair work to the fragile wings covered with fabric stretched tight with rope.
Lindbergh began to develop a meticulous attitude towards all aspects of his life. He noticed how the better pilots tested and checked each part of a plane before flight, how each detail was analyzed and every contingency planned for before actually taking to the air. Though soon to be called "Daredevil Lindbergh" for his barnstorming stunts, he left little to chance and nothing unplanned. He expected perfection from himself, and certainly from those around him.
After more than eight weeks at Ray Page's, Lindbergh had little more than six or eight hours instruction in a plane. Moreover, he learned that Page was selling the training plane to a barnstormer named Erold Bahl. Lindbergh tried without success to convince Page to let him solo before the plane was sold. When Bahl arrived to pick up the plane (he was embarking on a month long barnstorming tour) Lindbergh asked if he could go along as an assistant. He even offered to pay his own way. Bahl eventually acquiesced.
Lindbergh did well as an assistant, and learned to "wing walk," to step out onto the wing as Bahl flew over town. A few days into the tour Bahl offered to pay for Lindbergh's expenses. After a month of touring, Lindbergh returned to the Lincoln Standard Factory. He received several more hours flight instruction there and in June, 1922 worked in the factory for fifteen dollars a week.
One day a husband and wife parachuting team visited Lincoln on their own barnstorming tour. The Hardins had been show-jumping at county fairs across the country to earn the modest fees and to market their own brand of parachutes.
Lindbergh was fascinated by the possibilities offered by a parachute and mesmerized by the demonstration put on by the Hardins. As he watched them practice an idea for a stunt occurred to him. He approached the Hardins with it.
At a fair one could jump from a plane and deploy his parachute. After descending for a short period, the jumper could cut away the chute with a knife and plunge towards the horrified crowd below, who would assume that the chute had failed. The chutist would then deploy a second hidden parachute and safely float towards what would surely then be an adoring crowd.
The stunt had possibilities and the Hardins liked it. It was dangerous but they believed that an experienced chutist, if well prepared and well practiced, could pull it off. However, Lindbergh had different ideas. He wanted to attempt it by himself.
Both Hardins were aghast. Not only was there insufficient planning for such a stunt, Lindbergh had never made any parachute jumps. It was risky for someone with experience to attempt such a stunt; for a neophyte it was suicidal.
Lindbergh would not be deterred. He lied to the Hardins and told them that he was considering buying one of their parachutes and this would be the test. The Hardins finally agreed and Lindbergh, on his very first parachute jump, pulled off the double jump stunt. Although eventually Lindbergh did in fact acquire a Hardin parachute, it was not purchased from them but rather acquired as a settlement from Ray Page in payment for flying time owed to Lindbergh.
Shortly after, Lindbergh left the factory and went on a barnstorming tour with an excellent flyer named "Shorty" Lynch. Lynch took Lindbergh along as an assistant since he could wing walk and make parachute jumps from the plane. The publicity posters billed "Daredevil Lindbergh." The tour was successful, ending in October, and Lindbergh spent the next several months visiting first with his mother and then with his father on the farm in Little Falls.
In early 1923 Lindbergh read that the Army was selling surplus "Jennies," a nick name for the Curtis JN4D, a biplane used to train pilots during the First World War. It was slow but reliable. With his father's assistance in the form of a loan guarantee, he raised enough money to buy one from Souther Field, Georgia, for five hundred dollars.
Lindbergh still had not soloed, and, since this was before pilot's licenses were required, no one asked him whether he was a pilot. Why else would he buy one?
Never having previously flown in a Jenny, he almost crashed on his first attempt to take off. An unknown pilot who had been watching, got in the plane and helped familiarize him with it. He spent the next week or so at Souther field, living alone by his new plane and practicing flying solo in the daylight. He finally left to begin a career of flying, determined to make his living from it.
Lindbergh headed into the central part of the country, setting down in farmers' fields, and offering rides wherever he could gather a crowd. He flew to Little Falls and landed on the family farm. He helped his father campaign for office by taking him up to distribute leaflets from the air. It was his father's first ride in an airplane.
His second one was not very successful. Lindbergh had taken off and was barely fifty feet in the air when the plane dove and crashed. Lindbergh's father bloodied his face and broke his glasses. The crash also damaged the plane. Lindbergh also gave his mother her first airplane ride during his barnstorming days. She seemed to enjoy being a passenger and later accompanied him on several of his mail routes.
While Lindbergh could earn up to $250.00 at one stop if the crowds were there, making a career from barnstorming was becoming more difficult as the market became flooded. Although many pilots began undercutting the unwritten rule of five dollars per ride, Lindbergh refused to reduce his price.
His existence during this period was spartan and devoid of much human contact. Those interactions he did have were with strangers such as the people to whom he gave rides. He usually slept with his plane in farmers' fields, sleeping in the open, or under the plane in a bedroll. He had no friends to speak of and struck up no relationships with women. Clearly, Lindbergh was more at ease with the machinations of man, than he was with man himself.
Lindbergh foresaw the demise of the barnstormer and so paid particular attention to a stranger's suggestion that he should join the Army Air Corps. There, the stranger argued, he would further develop his piloting skills on more powerful machines cared for by Army mechanics.
He was attracted to the idea that the Army would broaden his skills as a pilot.