Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

John Mackinson flies over Campbell County near Lynchburg Regional Airport, where the group History Flight was taking passengers for rides.

John Mackinson checks out a Stearman N2S-3 that was used by the Navy to train pilots during World War II.

Harold Mize, a a pilot with History Flight, signs the flight book of fellow pilot Bryan Wright of Lynchburg, who had just flown with Mize in the T-6 Texan.

John Mackinson prepares to fly a vintage Stearman N2S-3 at Lynchburg Regional Airport.

The heavens were clear. It was a good day to fly.

And here was Dick Nielsen, a white-haired thrill seeker of 72, who had a 1 p.m. appointment with a yellow biplane.

"Sadly, even on a roller coaster I don't get that stomach feeling anymore," he said, standing near the runway of the Lynchburg Regional Airport on Friday.

What did get that stomach feeling was a half-hour spent tumbling through the clouds in the open cockpit of a biplane. Nielsen was hoping for "the stall," a sharp rise and swooping descent.

"I really want to go upside down but they don't do that," Nielsen said.

Was his wife, Ardith, planning a flight, too?

"No," she said, while her husband initialed a liability waiver.

Time was, planes bounced from town to town, wowing audiences with wing walking, barrel rolls and $5 flights. The price has risen since the 1920s, but the barnstorming tradition continues with History Flight and its air fleet, which touches down at the Virginia Tech/Montgomery Executive Airport in Blacksburg this weekend.

The Florida-based nonprofit will offer flights in a Stearman biplane and a T-6 Texan, a pair of old warbirds that would have trained a World War II pilot. Their 67-year-old Stearman, for one, was used as an instructional plane by the U.S. Navy in Pensacola, Fla.

History Flight typically attracts veterans and history types eager to see the aircraft they have read about, said Monica Tartsanyi, as she checked in passengers Friday. There are 90-somethings who have gone up and 6-year-olds.

"It gives you a taste of what guys went through 50, 60 years ago," said Tom Anwyll III, shortly before a flight he had waited four years to take.

That said, Anwyll had selected the T-6, the faster and friskier of the two planes, and was anticipating some aerobatics. Did he have the stomach for it?

"It's my understanding that they try the first ones and see how you're doing," he said.

His father, Tom Jr., who had brought a camcorder, chimed in: "They don't want you messing up their airplanes, either."

Indeed, as the biplane pilot John Mackinson strapped an uneasy passenger into a parachute before a short ride Friday, he pointed out the barf bag.

Then he hopped into the rear seat, fired the propeller up with a roar and very smoothly lifted the plane into the clouds.

"I grew up on a farm, sitting on a tractor, watching the planes fly overhead," said Mackinson, a one-time bush pilot who wore aviator sunglasses. "Leaving the ground is like escaping the world."

In the beginning, a flight in an open cockpit biplane felt something like a convertible ride down Interstate 81 at 100 mph. But that comparison fell away as soon as Mackinson asked, "Are you ready for some tricks?"

Shortly, the Stearman was pointed straight up and, a few pounding heartbeats later, straight down at the rolling green hills of Campbell County.

"The hammerhead turn," Mackinson radioed to the front. "Now we are going to do the loop."

"Is that what it sounds like?" his passenger asked.

And yes, it was.