Russ Healy refuses to part with his battered Jenny, affectionately known as the Old Lady, even after his employer, circus owner Bob Brooks, decides to sell off the older aircraft to cut financial losses. Stubborn and fiercely loyal to his plane, Russ resolves to prove its worth by taking on a dangerous movie stunt job for a director named Conant, who is desperately looking for someone to film dramatic aerial crashes.
Sensing that Russ is letting his temper overrule his common sense, Brooks and his fellow pilots hatch a plan to fly out to the film set and stop him before he kills himself trying to settle a fifty-dollar debt. Unbeknownst to them, Russ and Conant have already conspired to turn the intervention into an impromptu aerial battle scene for the film.
As the entire circus squadron arrives at the canyon filming location, they are quickly drawn into a chaotic dogfight captured by multiple ground and airborne cameras. The elaborate setup forces Brooks to ride along in the front-line action as a passenger while the Old Lady is put through grueling aerobatics.
The climax arrives when Russ intentionally guides the Jenny down into a soft-dirt shell hole for a spectacular, camera-ready crash that totals the plane without injuring the pilot. Following the wreckage, Conant presents Brooks with a surprisingly lucrative check for the unauthorized use of the circus planes.
Realizing the commercial value of the footage and the undeniable skill required to pull it off, Brooks yields to the pressure and decides to spare the historic biplane. The dispute ends with the boss officially declaring that the old machine will stay in the fleet, securing the pilot's place in the air.
