One hundred and sixty kilometres an hour, dressed in lycra.
While some cyclists dream of these speeds, it’ll be daredevils on a more powerful machine racing through the skies above Avalon this
weekend.
This is the airy domain of the Breitling Wingwalkers, a group of aviatrixes from the UK who have resurrected the daring art of open-air aerobatics.
The idea is not new. Following the Great War, when advances in aircraft design had been immense, some lucky flyers returned home to find an excess of aircraft that could be purchased cheaply.
Desperate to keep flying, but with little work to be had, they turned to ‘barnstorming’ in
flying circuses, taking people for joyrides and performing terrifying rolls and loops.
However, the 1930s public soon got bored with simple aerobatics, so the ante was upped with the introduction of wingwalkers such as American Ethel Dare.
Known as the ‘Flying Witch’ – and without any kind of harness or tether to the aircraft – the glamorous Dare would climb from the cockpit and perform handstands on the top wing, walk from one plane to another or swing from a
trapeze bar in the propwash.
Of course, the death rate was high among pilots and wingwalkers. The Flying Witch herself fell to her death from a plane at an airshow in Michigan, causing the authorities to ban the spectacle in 1933.
The Breitling Wingwalkers, who’ve flown safely since 1989, will perform their vintage art this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Avalon Airshow. Details: airshow.com.au
Emma Sutcliffe is a freelance writer. Contact her via Facebook at ‘Little River Emma’.
