000 flyers

Originally Aired: October 1, 1945 Cavalcade of America #200, "200,000 Flyers," tells the story of Roy Johnson, a World War I pilot struggling to build a future in peacetime America. When Roy returns home determined to continue flying, his sweetheart Elizabeth begs him to choose a safer life. After a barnstorming accident nearly kills a passenger, Roy and Liz compromise by opening a modest flying school. Through the 1920s and 30s, they slowly build the Roy Johnson Flying Academy, training eager young students who dream of taking to the skies. The episode dramatizes America's dangerous complacency about air power in the years before World War II. While Roy encounters German flyer Ernst Udet at the 1932 Cleveland Air Races and hears about Germany's military preparations, America continues training only 550 pilots annually. The story reveals how a small group of foresighted Americans, including civilians like Roy Johnson working alongside military officers, recognized the looming crisis and laid the groundwork for what would become the mighty United States Army Air Forces.