When Professor Donovan invented Lighter Than Air Foam the world changed. Before its invention air travel was a mere pipe dream; afterwards it became a reality. Unlike cruder attempts at air travel, or "ballooning" Foam was reasonably safe. It did not burst into flames, in fact, it burned rather slowly and only under the most extreme conditions could Foam be inducted to explode. Foam also had the advantage of being close to leak proof. Encased in the patented outer-cover even a large tear could be mended without risk that the ship would plummet to the ground. Foam bulged out of holes rather than leaking away, allowing Foam Jockeys to place bandages over rips. Of course, Foam was outrageously expensive and the professor held very firmly to his patents and secrets, only the wealthiest people or largest corporations could afford using it.
As Professor Donovan explained in his biography, "I wanted to make a s**t pot load of money." And he did.
Great, fanciful airships roamed through the skies full of happy, beautiful people willing to pay not so small fortunes to escape from the dirt and smoke below. As with everything, styles change and what was beautiful and amazing ten years ago becomes dated and small. Despite the relative safety of using Foam ships crashed, usually due to careless and daredevil pilots. So it came to pass, that through salvaging, scavenging, and other perhaps extralegal means, a new class of Foam Jockeys arose.
Plying the aether in less than beautiful ships these Jockeys made their various livings smuggling, trading, and delivering packages and people to out of the way places. In order to separate themselves from their more legitimate brethren they preferred to be called Foamers a play on the word roamers.
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