Lost in the shuffle of Henry Ford’s legacy with the Ford Model T is another interesting innovation: Ford built one of the first—possibly the first—airplane designed specifically for passengers. The Ford Trimotor, as the name suggests, was powered by three propellor engines and made almost entirely out of of corrugated aluminum. Passengers were treated to a cabin not unlike contemporary Pullman train cars (albeit very loud Pullman cars) and a Trimotor could take eight passengers on a flight. Ford built almost 200 of them that saw service with more than 100 airlines over decades, but absolutely nobody subjected a Ford Trimotor to more torture than Harold Johnson.
The barnstorming aviator got his hands on a Trimotor in the early 1930s for the express purpose of putting on aerobatics demonstrations with the most absurd airplane possible. The young twentysomething Johnson took his Trimotor on barnstorming adventures in which he landed on one main landing gear wheel, rolled the six-ton behemoth, flung it through loops, and did all manner of things for which the Trimotor was never designed. It’s a bit like drifting a dump truck, really. In one performance in the late 1930s, Johnson put the old Ford through 17 consecutive loops during an air show.
Johnson’s barnstorming act also included a bit where he’d finish with the Ford, then immediately jump into his modified Continental Special biplane to rip off even more frenzied aerobatics. He also participated in some long-distance air racing in his lifetime, but wartime pressed Johnson into service as a test and shakedown pilot on a number of programs, including the B-24, P-38, and Lockheed PV-2. It wasn’t sexy work, but what else can compare to a stunt show in a massive, slow passenger airplane?
Wow, what a tough plane!