Little big show

And, what’s that overhead? A Stearman biplane with what looks like a woman hanging from its struts! Maybe Route 17 is a time portal and we have been transported back to 1930. That sure looks like a wing walker and that is definitely a pristine, looks-like-new Stearman.

Nope, it’s still 2020 (darn), and what appears before us is the Bealeton Flying Circus Aerodrome. Pay our $15 admission fee at the little wood gate, take our chairs from the car’s trunk, buy a lemonade, and gaze skyward. It’s a sunny Sunday and the circus is in town.

A crazy idea

It’s been 50 years since a group of pilots decided to put on a show here with their collection of antique aircraft. The group—mostly airline pilots by day and barnstormers in their dreams—wanted to share their love of World War I aviation. But the cost of caring for the antiques and putting a show together was daunting. It wasn’t until the group morphed into Stearman and Waco owners—aircraft a little less delicate than earlier vintages—that the Flying Circus was born. And every Sunday morning, May through October, a ragtag group of recreational pilots—some retired military, some still flying for the airlines—show up coffee in hand and humor intact for the pilot briefing.

No one knows who and what acts will appear on any given Sunday, but most of the time at least 75 percent of the regulars appear. They gather around old wood tables in a Quonset hut, joking and swapping stories until Mike Truschel, president of Flying Circus Airshow Inc. and one of the eight owners of flying Stearmans in the show, calls the group to order. It’s not an easy thing; it’s a raucous group and since most have been doing this for many years, they are hard to corral. But Truschel gets their attention by emphasizing the safety aspect of the show. This is one thing this group of divergent personalities agree on—safety is paramount. In the 50 years of the show very few accidents have happened, and those involving loved ones most can never forget.

With his long, graying beard, John D. King looks like the grizzled old-timer he wants you to believe he is. But the former long-term president of the Flying Circus is sharp, active, and still flying his Stearman. He only handed the reins to the leadership to Truschel in 2018. “Since he retired from United [as a senior captain, flying a 747 on China routes] he has taken to sporting a beard, sometimes long and unkempt,” says Truschel. “We have unofficially correlated that if he does not shave, we get no rainouts. There have been times we pleaded with him to shave when we need a break from the relentless heat in the summer.”

King’s son John and grandsons Mike and Johnnie often perform in the show. “There are a lot of Johns here,” laughs Truschel. “If you yell ‘John!’ you get quite a response.”

The 450-horsepower silver-and-black 1943 Stearman is the only aircraft owned exclusively by the Flying Circus; the rest of the Stearmans are owned by volunteers like King (a 300-horsepower Stearman dubbed “747”) and Truschel (another 1943 Stearman painted orange and white and called “Gulfhawk” for the Gulf Oil Co.). In addition to the eight Stearmans are Wacos, a Fokker D.VII, Piper L–4, Piper Cub, Pitts Special, and an Aeronca Champ. Everyone contributes their aircraft, time, talent, and fuel (pilots with airplanes receive $50 per day, performers $25, and groundspeople $10). The $15 admission price is used for insurance, grounds upkeep, repairs, and any other overhead costs. No one is getting rich.

Silly antics

The Flying Circus is all about airmanship and showcasing the gorgeous vintage aircraft, but there’s a whole lot of silliness too. Each year a recruit will be coerced into playing the “Baron,” a snide comment on the German soldiers of the two world wars. The Baron is a ridiculous character who ends up with his pants down in an outhouse that gets “bombed” by one of the Stearmans. There’s also “Fifi LaBombshell,” played often by American Airlines customer service agent Teresa Francis (although different women will play the flighty Fifi, who loses her clothes in different ways throughout the show). Francis’s husband, Scott, shocks the audience out of its old-timey reverie by flying his aerobatic MXS at 250 mph midway through the show from the nearby Warrenton, Virginia, airport. And of course, there’s the Flying Farmer routine, a time-honored skit that has a clumsy farmer get into an aircraft without a pilot and bumble around the pattern (pretty amazing airmanship in this). Charlie Kulp played the farmer at Bealeton for nearly 40 years.

Wing walkers defy gravity and elicit cheers from the audience. Stearmans fly in close formation and a Pitts Special performs aerobatics. An announcer keeps the crowd entertained and while the jokes are corny, it’s good, clean family fun. Children gaze up in wonder as ice cream melts down their hands, and they giggle at the silly Baron. Some audience members sit on the old wood benches along the field while others open their car hatchbacks or truck beds and watch from there. They bring picnic lunches and their pets. You can buy food and drink and ice cream at the food stand, and there is a gift shop (bestsellers are balsawood aircraft and Stearman models). Come early to buy rides in a Stearman, Waco, Piper Cub, or Aeronca Champ starting at 11 a.m.

The show runs from 2:30 p.m. until 4 p.m. It’s patriotic (we all sing to the national anthem), and exciting (audience members get chances to win airplane rides). With much drama and homage, the show closes with a field-length lineup of the aircraft slowly taxiing toward the crowd, their radial engines roaring and smiling their distinctive grins.

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